Seller's Guide
Welcome!
Are you considering selling your home or just curious about the value?
This guide is intended to help you get ready and understand the selling process so you can make the best choices for you and your family.
My experience is that many homeowners think all REALTORSâ’¸ do the same thing. If you have talked to more than one REALTORâ’¸ then you probably have a similar perception.
I will outline several specific skills, strategies, and actions that enable me to achieve results. Read on, or for a personal conversation about your specific situation, give me a call at 303-587-7215.
PREPARATION is key to selling your home
Just as first impressions are important for people, they can be make or break for a home. When potential buyers walk into your house, they will start to evaluate everything they see. Their impression will ultimately determine how much they’re willing to offer on the property... or even if they’ll be interested in buying it at all.
Therefore, in order to get you the most money possible for your home, I put a ton of care into its preparation
before I put it on the market. Quality preparation that will leave buyers with the best impression of your house involves three elements:
REPAIR
CLEANLINESS
STAGING
3 Elements Of Home Sale Preparation
1. Repairs
There are several reasons to complete repairs on your home before you put it on the market. Ultimately, buyers will pay more for a home to avoid the work of fixing it, and they will pay faster.
Moreover, any money you invest into repairs before you list — when you have time to price-shop and to use a little bit of elbow grease — will be far less than the quote from the home inspector or the concessions for which buyers will ask.
The good news is that most repairs are merely cosmetic and fairly inexpensive. Think of the things on your to-do list: that leaky faucet and the cracked bathroom tile were bothering you when you lived in the house, and they’re going to bother the new owners too.
2. Cleanliness
You wouldn’t want your mother to come over when your house was dirty, would you? And you’re not even trying to get her to shell out thousands of dollars for the place!
Buyers are easily distracted, and they will tend to focus on the negatives instead of the positives of each home they tour. Each dish left in the sink or dust bunny in the corner is going to detract from the perceived value of your home, which means a lower offer amount and more time on the market for you.
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3. Staging
According to a recent study by the National Association of REALTORSâ’¸, 96% of buyer agents reported that staging had some effect on their clients’ view of homes. They said that staging made it easier for their clients to visualize the properties as a future home and that they were more likely to overlook property faults.
And these effects turned into cash for sellers just like you. The survey revealed that 52% of buyer clients were willing to offer more on a staged home than a similar home that was not staged — as much as 20% more than asking price!
But a picture is worth a thousand statistics. Take a look at the images below. Which home gives you a better first impression?
Trick question! This is the same home! The picture on the left was taken from the MLS listing of a property that expired on the market. On the next go-around, the listing was staged and new, professional photography was taken, and the home sold over asking price.
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Pricing Your Home
To Sell It Fast & For More Money
You may have heard that there’s not much housing inventory in Denver and all it's suburbs right now, which means that prices for homes have gone up across the board. This is great news for you as a home seller! The timing is perfect for you to get the most return on your investment into your home.
But even in today’s market, there are still homes that sit, waiting for an offer. This time spent on MLS means that you’re still making your mortgage payments and you’re still not getting equity out from your home.
Perhaps even worse is what buyers and buyer agents think about homes that have been on the market too long. Remember how important first impressions are? The first impression a buyer gets about a home that has been listed for a long time in this hot market is this:
“Something must be wrong with that home."
That thought will scare away many buyers, and it’ll prompt the ones who remain interested to try to lowball you.
But why are those homes still on the market in the first place? It’s because they are often priced “out of the market.”
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The good news is that I have a specific strategy to keep your home in the market.
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Promotion
Marketing Your Home to Sell
In the “old days,” real estate agents marketing their sellers’ properties would simply put a sign in the yard, put a listing in the MLS, and pray that it sold. Even today, there are a lot of real estate professionals who think syndicating listings to portals is a job well done.
And that might actually be enough to sell your home in today’s hot market. But if that’s all an agent does to market your home to potential buyers, then they’re not fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility to you: to get you the most money possible for your home.
You see, you have a distinct advantage in wanting to sell your home right now: there isn’t much inventory, but there are a ton of buyers. A smart agent will use this classic example of supply and demand to create an auction environment for your home.
Getting multiple offers on your home will allow you to choose the best one for you, the one that has the right price, the right timeline, and the right conditions. This isn’t possible if your agent convinces you to sell the home before it’s even officially listed!
The key to creating an auction environment is promotion. We have to get your home in front of the people most likely to purchase it.
I have a two-part promotion process for each of my listings. The first part is what I call the “pre-launch” sequence, and the second is "post-listing" marketing.
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The pre-launch activities use the latest technologies and our marketing know-how to seed the marketplace, optimize for SEO (search engine optimization), and position your home for the best possible impression right out of the gate. For example, I share all of my listings on all of my social media platforms as well as Realtor.com.
My post-listing activities are designed to keep your home top of mind with potential buyers. I use my national network of agents to promote your home to people wanting to move to the area, and I pen compelling marketing narratives to help buyers envision living in your home.
At least half of all home buyers found the home they ended up purchasing on the internet, and that percentage is only going to grow.
So, What Next?
What to Do Now to Sell Your Home
If you are considering selling your home in today’s market, I invite you to give me a call or text at 303-587-7215 or send me an email at laurie@homesbylaurie.com. I would love the opportunity to learn more about your specific situation and explain to you in more detail what I do differently to sell homes faster and for more money.
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