Sellers: Are you ready?

The cliché “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” is true for home sellers now more than anytime in recent history. Today’s buyers have certain expectations that must be met in order to obtain an offer. Among them, the price must be fair, the house must be in very good to excellent condition, and the home must meet their needs AND wants. Nationally, this is a tremendous change from a few years ago. While not as pronounced, the change is noticeable here in the Louisville real estate market as well.

Depending on where you live in the Louisville area, your property will be competing with as many as 2 times the number of homes for sale as it would have if you sold 2 years ago. This means that if there were 10 similar properties in 2006, there could be 20 now. If all of the houses were identical, the odds of a buyer selecting your home would have fallen from 10% to 5%. Fortunately, all homes are not identical and, even more beneficially, you can help control whether your house will sell.

Selling a home is about creating emotion and reinforcing it with logic. To be successful, you and your real estate agent must work together as a team. If each of you takes care of your responsibilities, the whole process will be rewarding for everyone involved (buyer, seller, and agent). A good agent will make sure that the property is listed at a fair price and will provide exposure so that other agents and interested buyers can find your house easily. A very good realtor will make recommendations for updating or staging your house before it goes on the market. The rest is up to you.

When a prospective buyer comes to your house, will they see an overgrown yard, deteriorating shutters, and a broken down fence? If so, why do you think they would even come in the front door? Once inside, will they find a clean, clutter-free, and well-kept home or will they see dishes on the counter, dirty clothes on the floor, walls in need of painting, etc? If it is the latter, why do you think that they will make an offer? You must make the buyer(s) feel as though they WANT to live in this home. If you don’t, someone else will.

You have but one opportunity to create this emotion, are you ready?

Are you sure?

As always, I am here to help.