Top Tips On Preparing Your Home For Sale
Getting your home ready for sale? Here are some top tips to get it sold!
1. Strategic pricing: The number one marketing tool when selling an apartment: price. Even during the frenzy of last year’s seller’s market, buyers lining up to purchase apartments and bidding wars were absolutely predicated by pricing the home correctly on the first go around. And in the last quarter, the market has begun to slow and stabilize, which means strategic pricing to attract a healthy constituency of prospective purchasers is more important than ever.
2. Choose the right broker: Make sure you are choosing your broker according to who you believe will offer the best service, NOT who promises you the highest sale price. This called “buying the listing”, and it usually results in a home that doesn’t sell because it’s simply overpriced. Additionally, ask your broker the right questions. What relevant sales have you sold in my building, or in my neighborhood? Ensuring your broker knows how to best cater to the specifics of your apartment in particular is essential.
3. Be logistically, financially, AND emotionally ready to sell: This is critical and falls on you, the seller, to have a reality check with yourself. Are you prepared to move out and mobilize when an offer comes in? Do you know what your next move is? Have you lined up your financial situation pre and post sale? Lastly, and often the most overlooked responsibility: make sure you are emotionally ready to detach from the property. Waffling serves no one, least of all you!
4. De-clutter and re-color: The most successful sales occur when an apartment looks its best. Most prospective purchasers know within 30 seconds whether an apartment is aesthetically pleasing to them, so getting that just right, from de-cluttering to full scale staging, is an important aspect of the preparation process.
5. Photos and floor plan – do it once and do it right: Never launch an apartment for sale without professional photography and a professionally drawn floor plan already uploaded to the listing before it goes live. You want to be hitting on all cylinders when you launch, and when any key detail of the apartment listing is missing, many buyers will pass your listing over- regardless of how promising it might otherwise have been. You only have one shot to capitalize on the surge of interested garnered from that “just listed” label… so do it correctly!
6. Get ALL the documents ready to provide to the other side, even if it costs money: The combination of uncertainty and time turns all happy endings into tragedies. The longer a buyer is left without the necessary documentation they need for their review, whether before or after an offer is accepted, the higher the likelihood a prospective deal falls apart. Get ALL the documentation ordered and prepared before launching. Spending $200 now may save you thousands of dollars later.
7. Tell your marketing and PR contacts if it has unique qualities: If you happen to be selling an estate of a deceased author, for example, or have an apartment with rare qualities like 18 foot ceilings, alert the press! You would be surprised just how hungry the real estate journalists are to hear about the home or its owner.
8. Preparation, preparation, preparation! As a general rule of thumb doesn’t list until everything is ready: To tie in all of the themes from above: “amat victoria curam” – victory loves preparation. If every last item isn’t in place, the apartment isn’t ready to launch. Taking a shortcut will only do the opposite of your intentions! In my experience, there is no quicker way to obtain an offer and move into contract that being ready and prepared for any eventuality.
As you can see, none of this is rocket science, which is good! But it does require careful management, attention to detail, and a keen understanding of the process and intricacies in listing an apartment for sale. To hear more about my and my team’s strategies, please feel free to reach out.
