SELLING YOUR CASTLE
because every person’s home is their castle
by DARRELL JOHNSON
INDEX
PRESENTING YOUR HOME TO SELL MARKETING YOUR PROPERTY BE CAREFUL CHOOSING THE RIGHT AGENT BE REALISTIC YOUR BEST OFFERS MAKE CHANGES EARLY TIPS TO HELP sell your home
A Reputation Built
PRICING YOUR HOME RIGHT
INTRODUCTION With advice & tips from leading real estate industry experts, along with knowledge gained from selling many & varied properties for my valued clients over the years and also through my own personal experiences in buying, selling, renovating & investing in properties, I have put together this informative little booklet that will help you maximise the sale price of what is probably your biggest financial asset in any market. Whether it be a small one-bedroom unit or a huge Main River mansion, a person’s home is their castle and each individual property deserves to be treated with the same game-plan, respect and care as the other if a successful sale is required. Wishing you enjoyable reading and the best of luck with your future property ventures ‌ Happy Selling !!! Regards Darrell Johnson
When selling your home you are in direct competition (not isolation) with every other property that is currently on the market. If you are wanting to sell your home sooner rather than later, you need to ‌ OUT-PRICE the competition OUT-PRESENT the competition OUT-MARKET the competition
Pricing your home right
Pricing your property right is the single most important factor when selling … a property that is well priced, well presented & well marketed should sell within the first few weeks of it being placed on the market. Potentially thousands of people will see your home as soon as it goes live on the internet - if it isn’t fairly priced in comparison to similar properties, then not many people will enquire about inspecting it. There is no point in pricing it at an over-inflated price just to “test”
the market - it won’t sell and you & the agent will just end up looking like fools with an over-priced listing, plus your home will be known as “the one that didn’t sell”. If you want to sell your property quickly, then it needs to be priced right or even just below market-price to attract buyers to yours over others that are currently for sale. One of the biggest mistakes owners make is that they think their property is better than everyone else’s and expect potential buyers to love it as much as they do … unfortunately this isn’t always the case and can lead to bitter disappointment when expectations are too high. Consult your local real estate agent, read the newspapers and go to online real estate sites such as realestate. com or domain.com to see what comparable homes are going for in your area … keep in mind though that what a property is advertised for may not necessarily be the price that it eventually sells for. This is where recent comparable sales and factual sales evidence is required and can be supplied by a professional agent or reports bought on-line. Try to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes, taking into account both the negatives & the positives, and then determine what a fair price might be for your home before putting it on the market.
on Integritity
When your home goes on the market it is in direct competition with every other property that is currently for sale and buyers will be doing their own research of recent sales & comparisons to all other properties, not just within your suburb but in other suburbs as well to find the best value for their hard-earned money.
PRESENTING YOUR HOME TO SELL
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Sellers often overlook the importance of their home’s street appeal. The first thing a buyer sees is a home’s external appearance and the way it fits into the surrounding neighbourhood. Try to make certain that the exterior has a fresh coat of paint, and that the gardens and lawns are well manicured … your home needs to be attractive, inviting & enticing at first glance to get the buyers in the front door.
A buyer needs to walk in and have it look good, feel good and smell good. The home should be kept showroom-ready & in “move in” condition to give potential buyers the impression that they will be able to move straight in and start enjoying their new home, rather than spending time and money fixing it up. A mess leaves an impression that’s hard for a buyer to overcome. The impression you want to give is warm, inviting and “we can see ourselves living here”. The carpets should be cleaned and any unwelcome pet odours eliminated … not all home owners are animal lovers so pets should definitely not be present at inspections.
De-clutter, de-clutter, de-clutter … Unfortunately too many home owners placing their property on
the market think that potential buyers will see past their mess, clutter & junk … whilst this may be the case with some, you can bet that any offers will be a reflection of the condition that your home is presented in. It may be well worth hiring a skip-bin to throw away all that unwanted clutter around the place, or calling The Salvo’s or Lifeline to collect anything that you haven’t used in the last 12 months (and feeling great for doing so), or renting a storage shed for the short-term whilst your property is on the market. De-cluttering might also include removing some furniture to make rooms look bigger, and putting away family photographs and personal items. You may even want to hire modern furniture and a professional Property Stylist that specialises in first impressions for your home to help you make better use of the space. Once again, sellers should put themselves in the shoes of prospective buyers and try to see their house for the first time, being critical of all things and paying particular attention to anything that needs to be done to improve the overall appearance … and yes, that bright coloured, “in your face” red feature wall that you love so much may just have to go !!!
MARKETING YOUR PROPERTY TO ATTRACT EVERY BUYER POSSIBLE
If you are wanting to attract EVERY potential buyer to your property
(and therefore achieve the best price possible) then you have to use EVERY form of advertising & marketing at your disposal and therefore be seen EVERYWHERE that buyers are looking !!! Use all forms of marketing available. These days many vendors are just wanting to use the internet to sell their home however this is only one medium that is available to effectively market your home for sale & believe it-or-not not every buyer is internet savvy. If you want the best buyer to find your home when it is for sale and therefore achieve the best price possible, you must cover all your bases and make sure you have a complete marketing strategy to create as much energy as possible and generate a real “buzz” around your property when it first goes to market. You only get one chance to sell your property for a good price so have every marketing medium working for you straight from the start … a strong internet presence, advertising in the local papers, good signage, neighbourhood letterbox campaign, agent data-base mail-out, professional photography, editorial (if possible) and the absolute best agent working for you. Go to any coffee shop on a Saturday morning & you will see people browsing through the property section of the local newspaper … “red hot” active buyers that are ready to buy NOW won’t just scour the internet but will also be checking out the local papers for their new home. The Real Estate section in your local newspaper is the only other real way to highlight your property and give it a point of difference to make it more visible over the other 1000’s that are currently advertised on the internet … unfortunately most vendors don’t realise this and could very well be under-achieving the price that they eventually get for their home Picture Perfect … “a picture paints a thousand words” as they say so when it comes to marketing your home, professional photographs can be one of the most important elements to factor in. Many buyers will judge your property within five to 10 seconds of looking at the photos and if they’re not excited (or are turned off) by what they see then they simply won’t read on and will go on to the next house.
BE CAREFUL WHICH “EXPERTS YOU LISTEN TO
Everyone is “an expert” and has an opinion when it comes to selling your property and what it is worth – neighbours, friends, family, work colleagues etc. Whilst their advice may certainly be helpful and surely well-meaning, you have to ask the question “how many properties have these people sold in the last 12 months?” and also “how many potential buyers are they speaking with on a daily basis?”. Do these people really know the current property market or are they just offering biased, uneducated advice on what is best for you/them? This is where a registered valuer or experienced, active agent in the area can offer you unsolicited, unemotional advice by knowing & comparing your property to other recent sales in the area. Feedback & opinions on your property’s price will generally be given by the following parties … Family, friends & neighbours will always think that your home is worth more … “take it with a grain of salt” when they give their opinion – they are almost always too high. Buyers that are ready to buy now, that have inspected your property but don’t like it … these buyers have been doing their comparisons to other properties, are usually quite well educated and fairly accurate with price feedback because they see it for what it is and have no emotional connection to your home. Buyers that may be interested in your home … they will usually give slightly lower price feedback/offers initially because they may be interested & then make a more serious offer to buy it if they become emotionally attached … you do have to be very careful here though because their first offer may well be, and in a lot of cases usually is, your best offer !!!
choosing the right agent
Having the right agent selling your home for you can make a huge difference when it comes to looking after your best interests with the successful sale of what is probably your most valuable asset. You want someone that knows what they are doing and that you can trust to do the right thing & get you the best price possible. Whether an agent is part of a big national chain or is a small independent, it makes no difference what-so-ever. Nearly all real estate offices are independently owned & operated and you’re always dealing with a small business owner who is working for themselves and hesitant to network with another office anyway. Employ an Area Specialist … hire an agent who specialises and is active in the area that your property is located in and ideally one that lives in and believes in your suburb & has a proven track record of sales there. They will know recent nearby sales & how that property compared to yours. Attend open houses posing as a prospective buyer … you can then see how welcoming & helpful the agents are and assess their selling styles. Interview three agents from your area asking them how they would sell your property, which method they would suggest and why? First impressions count – trust your gut instinct on who has your best interests at heart, who you feel the most comfortable with & which method of sale would work best for your particular property. A good agent should have many current active buyers on their data-base already at hand for when a new listing pops up and these buyers should be emailed regularly. Ask the agent for the names and contact numbers of all their clients whose properties they’ve sold recently so that you can call those people for references. When you decide which agent is best for you & your property, work closely with that agent as a partnership … allow the agent to do their job and be open to any feed-back & suggestions they give that will help you move closer to a sale. Agents don’t usually get paid a cent until your property settles so naturally they will be doing everything possible to secure a sale for you. A good agent should effectively cost you nothing when you sell because they’ll more than negotiate the price high enough to cover their fees.
be realistic & remove your “rose-coloured glasses
You have to be detached when selling a property … remove the emotional attachment & remember that you’re not selling your memories, you are selling a house. Be Realistic & understand from the start that not everyone is going to love your home, in fact probably lots of buyers won’t like your home at all. Don’t get discouraged when you get negative feedback about your home - try to see it for what it is, they just don’t like it. The most valuable feedback is what the market-place thinks your home is worth, and then you can adjust your price early if the feedback isn’t in alignment with your expectations. If you truly want to know the value of your home & for a totally independent viewpoint, hire and pay a reputable registered valuer for their written opinion. The property market can be cruel at times. It doesn’t care how much you paid for your home or how much you need to sell your home for … all the market cares about is how much your home will sell for in today’s market to a willing buyer, and that can often be cruel. Some sellers over-estimate the value of price and under-estimate the value of time … if you wait long enough, you can get almost any price, but price and time must match. Too many sellers unfortunately seek the impossible – an overly high price and a fast time for the sale. In today’s market, sellers are again optimistic on the value and price of their homes, but unfortunately buyers aren’t. The challenge as a seller is to price the house so that it is compelling … you really want to position yourself to be the one that sells, not the one that just sits there. The longer your home has been on the market, the less it is valued by the market & potential buyers … if it has been sitting there for a long time unsold then it will be viewed as either “over-priced” or “there is something wrong with it”. Don’t get angry with your agent if bargain-hunting buyers make ridiculous low offers for your home and the offers that you are receiving are lower than your expectations … agents are required by law to tell owners of all offers they receive for a property – good agents will be honest with you & give constructive criticism as to why the buyers may have made these offers. If you’re turning around and buying another home, and you already have cash in hand thanks to a fast sale, that then puts you in a very powerful negotiating position.
your best offers will come early
You have the greatest number of qualified buyers available when you first launch your home into the market-place and that excitement period never comes back. The best offers will come early from buyers who have been searching for a while for their ideal home - fearful on missing out on a new listing, they will make a good, strong offer early in the hope of securing their home … many owners get over-confident if they get an offer in the first week or two and reject that offer. Competition peaks in the first few weeks and buyers are most likely to make offers because they fear losing out to someone else. Before you dismiss any early offers, consider the following - your agent may have been working with that buyer for months already; the buyer is keen to buy a home and have become frustrated and sick of looking so will pay a premium for the right home. They may be your best buyer by a long shot. They know the local market through months of research. Once their offer is rejected however, they will move towards other homes, and that offer no longer exists. Don’t make the mistake of rejecting a good, strong offer early by thinking “it’s only early days” … unfortunately it happens too many times that “your first offer is usually your best offer” and sellers unknowingly reject that initial offer thinking that something better is “just around the corner”, only to find that months later they painfully end up accepting a much lower figure.
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Once again, your property is worth the most the day it goes on the market – this is when it is fresh & new and will attract the most interest from buyers that have been searching over the last couple of months for their ideal home … this is also when your best & strongest offers will come - after this period the initial buzz, excitement & momentum of a “fresh, new listing” is lost !!!
Make changes early if you’re getting no interest or offers
tips to help sell your home
other helpful advice
darrell johnson 0403 083 704 Adress : Your company adress comes here Phone : Web : www.kdps.com.au