Tip No. 1 – Pricing. You must always be asking yourself if the price of my
home, with the amenities I have, is helping the other homes around me
sell, or do those homes help me? Simply put, how does my home compare
to that of my competition? You want to stand out from the crowd. Price
your home in such a way that your home becomes the obvious choice to
home buyers looking in your area.
As you may or may not know, pricing your home right from Day 1 will ultimately
determine how much you get for your home.
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Tip# 2 – Property Marketing. Here are some marketing tips and ideas that
you may not have thought of:
1. Yard signage
2. Directional signage
3. On-line real estate ads
4. Social medial ads
5. Sphere of Influence
6. Open house
7. Co-op with Buyer agents
Be sure that your ads are descriptive and as detailed as possible so that you can drive
more traffic to your home!
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Tip #3 – Pre-qualifying buyers. Here’s a list of things you’ll want to do
prior to scheduling any showings with buyers:
1. Request a copy of the buyer’s pre-approval letter from their bank.
2. Call the buyer’s loan officer to discuss buyer’s loan approval.
3. Discuss with the buyer what attributes about your home interested them
the most.
4. Ask the buyer if they are contingent on selling a home prior to
submitting an offer.
5. Discus the buyer’s timelines.
6. Never show your home alone! Be sure you have someone else with you at
all times.
When buyers inquire about your home, and want to set up time to see it, make sure
you pre-qualify them before letting them in!
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Tip No. 4 – The Ultimate Open House. Conducting an Open House event
works great when done properly. Below is a step- by-step guide to help you
prepare for your open house event.
1. Start marketing your open house at least one week in advance.
2. Run social medial ads for one week leading up to the event.
3. Communicate to all realtors of your open house event.
4. Send a letter to your neighborhood inviting them to your event as they
may know people looking to buy in the neighborhood.
5. Signs, signs, everywhere are signs on the day of your event.
6. Make sure you don’t wait until the day of the event to start marketing or
you will be very lonely.
Open houses can be one of the most useful tactics on driving buyer traffic.
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Tip No. 5 – Offer Negotiation Strategy
1. First, understand that all offers are good news.
2. The way you respond will be dictated by how long you’ve been on the
market. As an example, if your home is new to the market and you get
an offer right away, you’ll have the leverage throughout the
negotiations. However, if your home has been on the market for quite
some time, you may find yourself losing that leverage to a perspective
buyer. This is why its critical to price your home right from Day 1 as
your offer strength is a direct correlation to how long your home has
been for sale.
Once offers start to come in, understanding simple offer negotiation tactics will make
all the difference.
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Tip No. 6 – Your Home Inspection options. After the buyer’s home
inspection is complete, often there are times when a buyer will request you
do repairs or offset those repairs with some type of concession. Here are
your three options:
1. You’re not obligated to do anything.
2. Renegotiate with the buyer to come to a middle ground.
3. Agree to the repairs or concessions and move forward towards closing.
After you accept an offer, the buyer will most likely exercise their right to have a home
inspection done.
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Tip No. 7 – How to Handle the Appraisal.
1. Always meet the Appraiser at your home.
2. Prepare a detailed list of home updates and upgrades that you can
provide the Appraiser.
3. Have a detailed market analysis prepared to give the Appraiser on the
day of the inspection.
If the buyer of your home is getting a mortgage, they will have to get an appraisal.
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Tip No. 8 – Closing Tips.
1. Never turn over the keys at closing.
2. Request free occupancy to remove the stress of moving.
3. Get your closing numbers from the title company to review in advance.
Hopefully by now you are getting to close to closing on the sale of your home!