5 Ways to Sell Your Home Fast and For Top Dollar

We all know this real estate market has gone through the roof as far as values go. But everyday I see sellers lose potentially tens of thousands of dollars by not following a few simple steps.  So, whether you choose to use a Realtor, check out the following list to make sure that you don’t capitalize on the market.

Price it right.

Seems obvious, but pricing in a low inventory market can be tough.  There are few comparable sales (comps) and there are several factors that can change the value between the different homes.  Things like acreage, or waterfront, or if your home has a commercial lot behind it.  Pricing your home is a tough thing if you don’t sell a lot of homes.  We go over it in more detail in the article “Pricing Your Home Right in Today’s Market.”

Wait a minute.

Do not be in a hurry to take the first offer the first minute that the home hits the market.  Even if you think the price is correct.  You may find out the market outpaced your price.  So slow down and wait a minute.  Let the home get properly exposed to the market.

Sometimes the offer is too good to wait, and I understand that.  But as a general rule, you will want your home exposed to more people to get the best offer.

Keep Marketing

Just keep marketing as though it is a tough market.  This does not cost much money to do and the only thing that can happen is you expose the home to more people.  This in turn raises the potential to get more for your home.  When you have multiple interested parties, this significantly increases the chance for you to win in the negotiation.  Want to see an example of a strategic marketing plan?

Just Say “No” to pocket listings.

In this incredibly tough market for buyers, a lot of real estate professionals will attempt to sell your home before it hits the market.  We all have a ton of buyers looking, so it is pretty easy to do.   This includes selling it to your tenant or agreeing to terms with a buyer from inside the listing agent’s office.

But this only costs you money!

Say “no” to selling your home before it hits the market.  Expose it to as many people as possible so you can have a chance to get the fair market value.  And putting it on the open market is the only way to determine the actual value.

Keep a pulse on the market.

Sometime hitting the price just right gets missed.  When this happens, you want to make sure to make the proper pricing adjustments.  This applies mostly to the “overpricing” of a home but could apply to pricing it too low.   If no one is showing the home, it’s time to make a price adjustment.  We have a strategy to lower the price on your home proportional to the amount of time its on the market.  Check it our here. This will keep you home current and in font of buyers on the market.  You don’t want to have your home sitting around for months in this market.  It scares away potential buyers.

** Bonus Tip**

Take backup offers.

Search for a backup offer to keep the first buyer in line.  Sometimes, in a crazy market, the buyers will “overpay” and then start regretting it.  So, the best thing you can do is have a backup offer.  It keeps the buyer in check a little about asking for minor repairs or trying to negotiate the contract after the home inspection.  The best way to do this is continue marketing the property even after it is pending.

Another benefit of a backup offer is you do not need to re-expose your home to the market and buyer traffic.  You have a buyer sitting in the sidelines to ensure that you will keep moving along with almost no hiccups if the first buyer gets cold feet or they are unable to perform on closing.  There are other things to consider that we go over in the article “Capitalizing on Backup Offers”.  Check it out if you would like to learn more on this.

Selling your home is intense these days.  You are likely to get a ton of traffic right at first and we want to make sure that you get the most money possible for your home.  If you are looking to sell your home with a local Realtor, we would love to apply for the job.  Get more info here.

Enjoying what you read?  See more articles about home selling here.

David is a licensed Principal Broker in Oregon with eXp Realty, LLC.

Want to become a real estate agent?  Check out the path here.