The political circus got kicked down the road a couple of months, and weather will be great for another week – it’s a perfect time to sell your house!
But you’ve already been on the market for a few months, and no luck. You experienced a big rush in the beginning, but now it’s down to a trickle. You think – if someone would just make an offer…..
What can sellers do to get their home sold in the next 30 days?
Start with putting yourself in the buyers’ shoes, and examine your online presence – is it compelling? Are there quality photos and video? Does the listing make you want to go see the house?
Then look at how your price compares with others for sale in the neighborhood. If there are two or more competing homes for sale, and nobody is selling, then a breakout is needed. Lower your price to be the cheapest of the bunch, or the cheapest $/sf – and make the gap big enough that it is obvious to buyers that you are the best deal.
Nothing works as well as lowering your price. But there are other things you can do to help the cause – complete as many of these items as possible:
Jim’s A La Carte List:
- Lower the price by at least 5%
- Add/improve photos.
- Produce a new video tour.
- Pay Buyer’s closing costs – specify the amount.
- Offer to Buydown the mortgage rate (1% or 1.5% sounds good).
- Rent back your home after closing for a premium rate.
- Offer a quick or flexible close date.
- Vacate home to make it look better and increase showings.
- Re-examine the usefulness of range pricing (drop it).
- Install lockbox and make it obvious on listing.
- No restrictions on showings – show anytime.
- Paint and carpet – and spend some real money!
- Clean the carpet.
- Improve the curb appeal.
- Get neighbor’s dog to stop barking.
- Get rid of the smell.
- Include recent sales in your listing to prove your price.
- Mention the specific schools.
- Pay a Full Commission to Buyer’s Agent (3% or more)
- Pay a Bonus to the Agents.
- Hire a professional salesperson.
Whatever you can do to provide more ease and transparency will help. Buyers are moving quickly, and your first impression needs to grab them!
what about paying your neighbors to clean their yard?
That’s a great one – and getting old junkers off the street is a good idea too.
while we are at it…..
24) let’s get a new stadium built for the Chargers.
25) Get the Padres to spend some money on payroll.
For #1, I’d supplement it with: Don’t lower your price unless you are willing to drop it by 5%. I see all these miniscule price drops (which i assume the agent is telling the seller is a good idea b/c it goes out on all the auto-emails as a price drop) but when buyers see something going from 1,199,000 to 1,198,000, it screams “this is going to be a difficult seller to deal with…”