When Selling Your Home, Highlight What’s “Green”!

When you are selling your home, you don’t have to live like Ed Begley Jr. to trumpet the green and sustainable features of your home. In fact, it is highly beneficial to make sure your listing agent pays attention to these details. If your appliances are Energy Star rated, make sure the listing states this. How about those brand new Low-E windows? Mention them! If you have painted the walls with No or Low VOC paint, list it! If that shower head or toilet saves water, let potential buyers know.  Heck even leaving behind the CFL’s in the lighting fixtures is a plus to an eco-conscious buyer. Green is not just a passing fancy for homebuyers and the more green features you can show in your listing, the better chance you will attract the ever growing green consumer to come and take a look and potentially buy your home!

The Real Facts About For Sale By Owner

No one wants to spend money when they don’t need to.

There are many reasons a homeowner would want to sell his or her own house, but saving money is a major factor in most decisions to skip the real estate agency process. Homeowners think that they will make more money if they save on the real estate fee. On the surface, that would seem reasonable. But when you look further into the expenses of FSBO, you see a different truth. You are thinking, this guy is a Realtor, so it would stand to reason I’d be looking for a way to get home owners to opt to list instead. But the cold hard fact is, FSBO’s tend to sell for less than those listed with qualified real estate sales professionals. So while sellers might feel good about saving the fee, more often than not they aren’t really saving any money at all.

FACT

The more people who know that your property is for sale, the more likely that it will sell faster and at a higher price. Listing your home with a Realtor and placing the property on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) allows thousands of Realtors (and their qualified buyers) to have access to your property. In most cases, an owner will net more with a Realtor, even after paying commissions. This is because more buyers will be viewing and bidding on the property. Imagine an auction with 5 people attending versus 100 people, which would probably result in a higher sale price?

FACT

A study done by the National Association of Realtors found that on average, the typical FSBO home sold for $113,000 compared to selling price of $129,900 for agent assisted homes. The percentage difference between the original asking price and the final selling price for both types of transactions was around two percent.” This is a sixteen thousand dollar difference, well more then the 6% brokerage fee.

MYTH

FSBO’s pay no commissions.

FACT

Most qualified buyers are represented by a buyers agent. Many agents shy away from showing FSBO’s to their clients. But if the agent will show your home to his clients, he will require that the seller sign a commission agreement with him. Buyers working without an agent are representing themselves for the same reason that you are, they want to save the commission and are going to want you to discount your home for the amount of the fees.

FACT

When Selling his or her own home, the owner will incur all of the advertising expenses. Classifieds, display, internet, signs, color flyers. It all ads up in monetary and time investments. Month after month.

FACT

The longer a home is on the market the lower the selling price is. Why? Because it acquires what is known as “market age.” Most buyers think that if the home has not sold after this long…there must be something wrong with the home. Market age is a deterrent to later selling at the proper market price.

FACT

You are advertising one home – your own. My office on the other hand is advertising many homes by comparison. It is frequent that a prospect will call a us on one ad but buy a home other than the one he called on first. In fact it is rare that the house the buyer originally showed interest in, is the house the buyer ends up purchasing. Thus, through advertising, we provide many possibilities for qualified prospects for your home.

FACT

When the visitors find nobody home often they go on to look at other homes and do not return to the home which no one was there to receive them. We, as Realtors, accessing a lockbox, are able to show the home at virtually any time, except when you do not wish us to do so. When prospects drive by, like a property from the outside, they simply take the address and our office telephone number from the sign, then call their licensed real estate professional or our office to arrange for a showing.

FACT

Prospects often are reluctant to bring out and discuss objections with the owner because of the personal element involved. They do not want to put the owner in the position of defending his own home. Thus, an owner can’t represent himself properly with many prospects because the owner does not know that the prospects have unrevealed objections.

Seller’s Dilemma: To Fix or Not to Fix? That is the question!

Photo from uglyhousephotos.com WHY?????

So your tub has hot pink tiles and the kid’s bedroom is Concord grape purple with an aqua marine mermaid border. All fine choices for your family, if you like that sort of thing. But not so much if you are planning on selling your home any time soon.

Everyone wants to live in a home that is personalized to their needs and tastes. But far too often these tastes conflict with the need or desire to sell the home when for one reason or another you need to move.

On the other hand, perhaps you have put off fixing that leaky shower fixture or the hole Johnny punched in the wall in the den when he tripped over the cat.  Or maybe its that cranberry juice stain all over the living room rug that you’ve been hiding under an area rug for 5 years.

Whatever the case may be, you are now in a position where you want to market your home to potential buyers and get the best offer possible to sell your home.  You have a decision to make as to whether to invest the time and money to re-tile, paint over, call a plumber, get out the spackle and trowel or simply show your place to the buyers “as is.”

Depending on the problem, this can be a very costly “fix”. But at the same time, you may lose significant selling power if your home gives off serious negative impressions to the buyers.

Houses are sold or not sold based almost exclusively on first impressions. If your home has good curb appeal, is clean and uncluttered and gives potential buyers a neutral pallet for which they can envision their own tastes, furnishings and lifestyle, then you have a serious leg up on the seller who refuses to depersonalize, declutter or invest in creating a positive first impression.

Regardless of what you do to address the problem, you need to approach it from the perspective of the buyer, not the seller. Imagine yourself walking into a home and how you’d react to the potential problem.

But do not just fix something for the sake of fixing it either. If you go for a cheap fix or a fix that doesn’t jive with the style choice of your potential buyers, you could be doing more harm to your chances of selling than good. The key to all of this is to ask yourself this question before you do anything: Is what I am doing to fix this problem going to ad a new problem for the potential buyers, who will likely want to change it again? If this is the case, then it might be better to just leave it as is and let them make the fixes themselves.

I highly suggest that when faced with this type of dilemma that you get the opinion of some real estate professionals. Talk to your listing agent about the issues, see what he or she has to say about the impact it will have on the sale. Don’t forget that your realtor has a lot invested in selling your home too. He or she will be glad to help you stage your home to maximize its appeal to the buyers.