How to Sell Your Home Faster ... and for More Money
- garethpjrealtor
- Jun 11, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 13, 2022
You're looking to sell your home, but you have also heard nothing but horror stories from the pros. You may face an agent without your best interest in mind, or your home may be on the market for months without a buyer in sight. What if there were ways to prevent all of this from happening? Selling your home does not need to be the long and arduous process that everyone makes it out to be. Read along to discover how to both sell your home fast and for its highest value.
In the process of selling, you will spend an incredible amount of time holding showings for potential buyers. Unfortunately, many are not interested in buying your home. This wastes a lot of your time.
This means the average home showing process takes three–four hours. Most owners show their home at least 8–10 times before making a sale.
The average owner spends 24–40 hours of his or her life showing their home. It can easily take 80-120 hours to complete the process.
Many homeowners will jump at the chance to show their home to anyone and everyone. When a buyer calls, they drop everything. This reactive approach is a big reason why it takes them anywhere from 8–30 showings to find the right buyer! The process could literally consume your life.
Over time, stress begins to build. Not just on you. Repeated showings are stressful on your entire family. It gets worse, as casual buyers continue strolling through and walking away undecided.
Do you have children? Pets? Showings cause chaos in their lives! Kids are rushed off to a friend’s house or whisked away to the park. Toddlers are parked in a playpen so you can begin the hurried cleaning process.
Maybe your pet gets locked in a crate, sent to the basement, or tied up in the yard. Your dog can’t run around during the showings or even while you clean the house. The poor pooch is cooped up for hours every time a buyer wants to stop by.
Children and pets do not like chaos. They might start misbehaving or need extra attention to counter the stress.
At the same time, the house needs to be spotless, from top to bottom. Someone has to rush around, frantically cleaning and organizing every time a buyer calls.
Chances are, you are going through all this stress to prepare for someone who was never serious about buying in the first place. Most people who look at a home are not going to purchase that particular house. Many “buyers” come only out of curiosity.
Many real estate agents show buyers multiple houses in order to increase their odds of making a sale. According to the National Association of Realtors®, an average agent sells 11 houses a year. Therefore, each transaction represents approximately one month’s worth of income.
The agent wants to close a deal quickly and receive his or her commission.
Here’s the problem you are facing. Most real estate agents go about it the wrong way. They believe they will increase the odds of making a sale by showing as many houses as possible to their potential buyer.
They flood the buyer with options, hoping something will catch his or her attention. At the same time, they do not have a clear picture of exactly what the buyer is looking for, so they are unable to deliver.
Let’s look at how the typical process usually works. An agent has a potential buyer who would like to buy a three-bedroom/two-bath house in a specific area.
First, this agent prints out every listing that matches the buyer’s criteria, including a few close matches. These houses might not have two full bathrooms, or they might be slightly over budget.
She then takes the client from one house to the next. The buyer will see many houses, but, in most cases, won’t be interested in any of them. Nothing has that special something they want in a home.
This leads to wasted time, both for the buyer and the sellers they visit. Most buyers end up touring 20–50 houses before making a purchase. If the buyer visits 30 houses, and each seller takes three to four hours per showing, that buyer wastes 90–120 hours of his and the sellers’ time.
Many hours could be saved if real estate agents and sellers learned how to qualify buyers ahead of time. Buyers could then look at the listings and know immediately whether they want a particular property.
What if you could find serious buyers and get them interested in buying your home? In an ideal world, buyers would not go out to see a property they didn’t want. If you were the seller, you would not have to prepare your house for a buyer who wasn’t likely to make a purchase.
You would only show it to people interested in buying. That would help you sell your house faster while reducing stress on you and your family.
It would cut down on the number of showings, but each visit would be a potential sale.
This blog will help you turn that ideal world into reality. First, though, you need to have a clear understanding of exactly how much your house is truly worth in today’s market.
POINTS TO REMEMBER:
The average owner spends 24–40 hours on the 8–30 showings needed to sell their home.
With preparation, the process can take 80–120 hours, causing stress for adults, children and pets.
Most real estate agents show potential buyers many homes, hoping one will catch the buyers’ attention.
A better method is to show your home only to serious buyers, qualifying them in advance.
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