A 7 part plan to get your house or listing sold

Don’t worry it happens. Listings don’t always sell the way you plan. You might be the homeowner or the Realtor but these ideas will help.

The items below are in a specific order but you don’t have to do them in this order or just pick and choose some ideas.

These ideas assume you have had it on the market for a while and it hasn’t sold but they still work if its a brand new listing.

1. Staging

Staging is best for houses that have some unique rooms that people don’t know what to do with. Say you have a room near the front door that is awkward. Instead of telling people it could be an office, show them. Staging doesn’t really get people in the door but helps people bite once they are there.

We once had a house on the market without offers for months but got an offer within a week of it being staged. Staging costs roughly $2,000 for 6 weeks but based on experience staging is worth the money. As an added bonus, if you are a Realtor, then start collecting items that you could use to stage houses yourself and save your client the expense.

2. Pictures

Once the house is staged take new PROFESSIONAL pictures. If people have seen the property online then this helps make it feel like this is a brand new deal.

3. Cards

Leave nice note cards around the house like the house is a small museum. For example, if the dishwasher is brand new, put a note on it that says the dishwasher is brand new. The people are at the house so tell them everything. Did you just replace the floor, tell them! Does the foundation have a warranty, post it! You can ever mention how much average water, gas, and electricity are. If you have a pool, you HAVE GOT to leave some notes about the pool maintenance and fees.

4. Price

Regardless of the price you are asking for, don’t decrease it. Increase it! Increase the price by $500. That might seem counter productive but this if the price is lowered then it looks like you are desperate to sell. If anyone has saved the house online as a favorite then they get emailed that the price has changed. Though they will see the price went up they will also see that the house looks better due to all the new pictures. This also shows up online as a new deal.

Try it, I dare you.

5. Closing Costs

Every Buyer asks the Seller to donate towards their closing costs but every Seller hopes Buyers don’t know this is actually a thing. We say, Sellers should publicly offer $2,000 in closing costs to all buyers. Make that note big online so everyone sees it. This helps justify the raising of the price since in the long run the buyer is actually getting $1,500.

6. Bonus to Selling Agent: aka BTSA

Realtors can put private remarks online that only other Realtors see. This is an incentive for Realtors to push the proper a bit to their clients.

Offer to give $1,000 bonus to any Realtor who brings in a full-price offer that closes within 45 days of acceptance and the offer was submitted within 2 weeks of the revised listing. Emphasize the full-price offer part though. Use some bolding, some italics, ALL CAPS, something. This says you are serious about the bonus but it has restrictions.

7. Open House (virtual and face to face)

Bring your candy, bake some cookies, the whole 9 yards. Immediately do an open house once you have done everything above. Do 2 weekends of an open house or Saturday/Sunday open house. Since you just staged the house, got new pictures, changed the price, yadda yadda yadda, you pretty much have a new deal and you need to promote it.

Do the virtual open house, Facebook live it to. Ask all the other Realtors in your office to promote it as well. Most open houses in my opinion are boring to go to and boring to do but they work if they are done within 6 days of a property being listed. The first 6 days are critical.

Boom! Now you have a deal that will sell fast.

But here are some additional ideas:

Additional Ideas:

1. Make Improvements – If you already know something is an issue, fix it and then show people it got fixed.
2. Offer Warranties – Mention the Seller will offer a home warranty or if the house is old maybe the Seller can offer some form of personal warranty. Be creative.
3. Ask why Buyers are saying No – Collect some info and get to work on dealing with objections.
4. Seek out Buyers – Call Realty offices, investors, your own neighbors.
5. Owner Finance – Would your seller consider owner financing it to a Buyer and get passive income for the next 15 or 20 years?

We’ll keep updating this as we go along but those ideas could help you get a contract.

Of course, if its a hard to sell property then talking with an investor might be the best idea.

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