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If you want to sell your home quickly and for a decent price you need to understand how today’s home buyers shop. When you truly understand home buyer shopping habits and market trends, you can take proper actions to ensure a speedy sale. You will want to consider how your home appears to buyers both online and in person, the timing of putting your home on the market, and proper pricing.  Presentation is EverythingImagine you are swiping through tinder looking for an eligible candidate for a nice date. You see hundreds of images. Some of these are appealing, some of them are not, and then there are those people who have a photo that’s so blurry you can’t even tell what they look like or even worse, no picture at all. Those profiles are almost always going to get an immediate swipe left. You want to make sure prospective buyers swipe right on your listing! First and foremost, your home needs to put on its best dress and get a killer selfie to show the public what she’s got. For a house, this means making sure the curb appeal is killer, adding flowers, power washing the driveway, and sprucing up the front door. You also don’t want to make your home like one of those profiles where the first pic is amazing and then you start swiping through a few more images and then inevitably swipe left. You need to make sure your killer presentation continues throughout the interior of the home. Ensure that any signs of wear and tear like a dog scratched door or worn carpet is rectified prior to listing your home for sale. Make sure all the clutter is eliminated, the beds are made, the furniture is an appealing configuration, and the house is clean. Then, you are ready to call in the pros for a photo shoot that will have prospective home buyers knocking at your door in seconds. Proper presentation isn’t only physical. You also want to make sure you have some meat to your listing. A pretty profile with no details will still leave some people reluctant to swipe right. In addition to showing buyers the benefits of your home, you want to tell them what they can’t see. Explain how you have a brand new HVAC system, the home is minutes away from a beautiful park, and the schools are superb. The bottom line is that if your home doesn’t entice buyers online, most people will never even take it out on a date. Professional photos and a stellar description will get prospective buyers in your door. Timing is KeyEven if your home looks amazing! You may not get as many people in the door if you don’t list at the best time. Every neighborhood will have it’s own peak seasons, market trends, and unique nuances that determine when the best time to list your home will be. It’s important to take these into consideration, and look at the historical sales data in order to determine when you should put your home on the market. You will want to time it well on a weekly level too. Listing your home on a Thursday has proven to lead to quicker and more profitable home sales across the nation. Proper Pricing Solves AllAbove all else, proper pricing solves all. Even if you ignore my other two tips for selling your home quickly, if you price your home properly it will sell. If a home is priced way lower than everything else for sale in the neighborhood and it down’t even have a single photo online, buyers will still make their way over to the home to take a look in person. On the other hand, a home with gorgeous photos, the best marketing you’ve ever seen, and a description that moves everyone who reads it will not get any showings if the price is too high. In order to sell your home quickly and for a decent profit, you need to incorporate all three of these items. Your real estate agent will pull relevant comps, comparable properties to yours that have sold recently, in order to help you determine the best asking price for your home. After comparing your home and it’s quality, size, and benefits to that of the recently sold homes in your area, the best asking price for your home will usually be quite clear.
If you live in the greater Austin area and would like help selling your home quickly, give me a call. I’ll have buyers swiping right in no time!
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When a property is listed for sale in the MLS, the home can be listed under a variety of different statuses. Most commonly, you are looking at homes that are listed as active. However, sometimes you may see properties listed as active continent. An active contingent property is a property where the owners have accepted an offer on the property, but the buyers must sell another property before closing on the sale of the subject property.  In Texas, there is a promulgated contingency form that outlines the terms of this agreement. The Addendum For Sale of Other Property by Buyer form specifies when the buyers must close on the sale of their current home and what will happen if the sellers receive another offer on the home. This form stipulates that if the seller receives another offer on the property they must notify the buyers of said offer. The form also specifies a certain number of days in which the buyers must either waive their contingency or the contract will terminate automatically. If the buyer elects to waive the contingency, the buyer is stating that even if they don’t sell the current home, they will still purchase the subject property. As a seller considering accepting an offer that is contingent, you should be sure to carefully read this contingency form. The date in which the buyers must sell their current home is important to review. If you are looking for a quick close, you want to make sure this date is not too far in the future. You will also want to ask questions to see how far along they are in the selling process. Do they have their current home on the market yet? If so, have your agent review the listing to make sure they are priced aggressively, and marketing appropriately. If the home is not even on the market yet, you will want to ask more questions to determine when they plan on listing the home for sale. You also want to make sure that the number of days required to respond when notice of another offer is received is not too long. In my opinion, three days is usually adequate. If the current buyers have too much time to respond, you may lose out on the second offer.  If you are a buyer submitting an active contingent offer, you should also consider how the seller will feel about the contingency. By providing proof that your current home is actively being marketed for sale and is priced correctly, you can ease the seller’s apprehensions about accepting an offer that is contingent.
One more interesting caveat in the active contingent scenario is that if you receive a second offer that is higher than the first, you can’t simply accept it. In fact, the only way you can accept the second offer is if the original buyers decide not to waive the contingency and the first contract automatically terminates. In this event, the earnest money that the contingent buyers submitted would be refunded back to them, and you could proceed to accept the second offer. If you have any other questions about active contingent status in Texas or general real estate questions, I am always here to help. Feel free to give me a call or send me an email. |