Factors Buyers Consider When Evaluating Your Home

1. Location

Location, location, location is what everybody always says in real estate. If you have a great location then you have the first thing taken care of, and you don’t have to worry about it. If you have a location that is not as desirable or has some inhibiting factor about it, then we really have to study what best qualities we can present about your location.

You have no control over your location. It is what it is.

2. Presentation Quality

If You Want to Know Why John Smith Buys What John Smith Buys, You Have to See the World through John Smith’s Eyes

There is one very important thing for you to understand when trying to sell your home: how you currently choose to live in the home, and how you stage the home for maximum reward may be two entirely different things.

When staging your property to sell, there are three main things you need to do to put the home in its most salable condition.

A. De-personalize

• You want the buyers to feel as if they could move right into your house without changing a thing. Any personal pictures or artifacts left out will make it more difficult for the buyer to begin envisioning themselves taking ownership of the house, because they are being constantly reminded of the current owners.

B. De-clutter

• Any clutter left on kitchen countertops, tables, bookshelves, etc. will cause your home to feel smaller than it really is.

C. Neutralize

• Why is it that if you walk into the model home of any large successful builder today, you will find almost all neutral colors? Because builders are professional home sellers, they know what causes homes to sell!
• It is common for sellers to think “I shouldn’t change the paint or flooring because the buyer will want to choose their own colors.” In reality though, buyers buy on emotion, not on logic. They will walk through your home and either have great or negative feelings. Yes, there are buyers out there that can see past paint colors, but the majority of buyers don’t have the same personal tastes as you do and they don’t have the vision to see beyond the colors. You will be turning away 80% of the market who only want homes that are ready to move in.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Have I done everything that I can do reasonably to put my home in the presentation quality that it needs to have the WOW factor for that buyer as they walk through the door?
• Is the house neat and clean?
• Have I addressed any issues that I need to address as far as making the house look good and smell good?
• Do I have deferred maintenance that I need to take care of at this point in time?
• Do I have anything that is a significant issue with regards to housekeeping or the yard?

You have direct control over your presentation quality.

3. Price

How to Price Your Home to Net You the Most Money

The market is a moving, fluid entity and no one can predict with 100% certainty what a house will sell for. However, there are some very good techniques that can be used to help in predicting what the market will reward you with.

Many people limit their market analysis to looking at comparable sales in their neighborhood. This is a big mistake, because looking at sold data does not tell you anything about the current market with respect to how many buyers are in the market today (demand) and the other homes currently on the market that will be your direct competition (supply). We always begin our pricing analysis by looking at this critical factor.

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