What Home Buyers Want: Tips for Selling Your Home Yourself
Author: JK Clevenstine
In any sales situation, understanding your potential buyers and
answering their desires will determine your success in making a
sale. This is true even when selling your home.
If you've decided to sell your home yourself, you need to do all
you can to entice buyers, because the financial results are
sometimes disappointing. According to a recent National
Association of Realtor's study, the median selling price of For
Sale By Owner homes was $198,200 compared with $230,000 for
agent-assisted home sales.
Many FSBO sellers wind up frustrated and eventually work with an
agent. But if you understand what prospective buyers want and
how they buy, your chances of success on your own increase
greatly. Here are some trends to consider (from NAR 2005 Profile
of Home Buyers and Sellers):
Ninety percent of homebuyers used a real estate professional
during their home search. If you refuse to deal with buyers
represented by agents, you've just cut yourself off from a huge
portion of your potential buying pool. Even if you don't want to
pay an agent to sell your home, you should be offering some type
of commission to an agent who brings you a buyer. You can
determine how much. But offering no commission is cutting off
your nose to spite your face.
Eighty-two percent of first-time homebuyers and 78 percent of
repeat homebuyers used the Internet to search for homes.
This has several implications. First, you should not depend on
the newspaper alone for advertising. Second, when buyers search
online, their first impression of your home is going to be the
photo included with your online listing. As the saying goes, you
never get a second chance to make a first impression; so make
sure that photo is an appealing one.
Ninety-two percent of homebuyers financed their home
purchase. This is an uncomfortable area for home sellers
because it requires talking about your buyer's finances. At the
same time, you do not want to waste precious time negotiating a
sale with a buyer, only to find out later that they do not
qualify for financing. Insist on your buyers providing a
mortgage prequalification along with any written offer for your
home.
Buyers between 18 and 44 years old more frequently purchased
homes in suburbs or subdivisions than did older buyers. When
you're selling a home in the suburbs, you're often selling a
home that's very similar to others on the market in your
area--competition is high and you need to distinguish your home
to buyers. Taking the time to stage your home, by playing up hot
button features, de-cluttering, and making strategic repairs, is
well worth the effot to motivate prospects to make an offer
(rather than moving on to the next home).
About the author:
Find out how to sell your house for more money in less time in
any market, whether you use a real estate agent or not. Simple
methods for every type of home. http://www.StageSellProfit.com
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