What to Expect: On the Market as a Seller
The hardest (or most time-consuming) part of selling your home is preparing it to go to market. Everything we’ve done up to this point is to get people into the home to see it in person. Once a buyer has seen how great your home looks in photos, they’ll be ready to come see it in person. This is one of the most crucial parts of the agent/client partnership. We’ve got to market your home to get people in the door, and you’ve got to be ready to showcase your home. We’ll work together with the unified goal of positioning your home for the best offer. So, let’s talk through expectations once your home hits the market.
Marketing Your Home
First things first, your agent needs to market your property to get as many eyes on it as possible. One of our highest priorities is making sure your property has the best exposure we can give it. We take a multi-faceted marketing approach to do this. Marketing your property will include:
Creating a personalized web page for your property with photos, a 3D tour of the home, we created when preparing your home for the market, and information about your home and property.
Adding a QR code to the For Sale sign in the yard that links to your listing. This allows those passing by a quick way to access more information and see photos of the home.
A high-quality brochure of your home for private showings and the open house. Potential buyers can take these with them and continue to be reminded of how beautiful the home was through photos and information about the highlights and best parts of the home. These are especially advantageous when buyers are seeing multiple homes in a day.
Social media posts of your property.
Networking with other agents.
Our overall goal in marketing your home is to communicate and showcase quality, hard work, and professionalism, so that buyers know we aren’t cutting corners but rather that we see the value and worth of the home ourselves.
Targeted Digital Advertising
A unique strategy that we at Haven Realty Group also utilize is targeted digital advertising. If a potential buyer comes to see your home and has their phone on them or if they have just scanned the QR code out front, we are going to serve them advertisements for your property. Your webpage that we created is going to begin popping up on Google or Facebook as advertisements reminding them of your home, reminding them of what made them want to see the property or scan the code, and eventually, hopefully, leading them to write an offer.
Showings
Soon after your home is listed, agents will begin requesting showings for their clients. We will set you up on a showing service which will notify you when an agent is requesting a showing and allow you to accept or deny the showing.
These will be private showings of about one hour in which a licensed realtor will show their clients your home. Showings typically occur anywhere from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm with a minimum one-hour notice provided to the sellers. If you need more than an hour’s notice because of small children or pets in the home, we can work with you to find a more realistic timeline. However, we want to make your home as available as possible for showings so that we can be opportunistic when a potential buyer wants to see the home. The goal is to be able to accept as many showings and therefore get as many potential buyers through your doors as possible.
Preparing for Showings
As you are preparing for showings, we want you to keep in mind that we want buyers to envision themselves in your house, not you. In preparing the house for the market, we’ve probably already had to remove the large family portrait above the fireplace mantel and some other personal items. And for the showings, we are going to ask that you vacate the home for the full window of each showing. It’s really difficult for a buyer to envision themselves living in a home with the buyer peeking over their shoulder.
Prior to vacating the home, do a little tidying up. We will provide you with a checklist for showings, but some basics are: opening up all the blinds, turning on all the lights, closing the toilets, hiding your toiletries, and putting away all dirty dishes. Remember, buyers don’t want to see your toothbrush, they want to see your beautiful countertops.
Additionally, take or crate any pets with you and make sure the house smells good as well. We don’t want buyers to be distracted by odors of any kind. Listen to our full podcast on this topic to hear about Keelie’s personal experience with “The Hot Dog House” and what not to do when preparing for showings.
Following Up With Agents
After these showings, your agent is going to follow up with the buyer’s agents for feedback on the showing. We will be asking them things like, what did the buyers think? What were the pros and cons? Is there anything that they saw that they would recommend we change? Are they planning to write an offer?
Sometimes we receive feedback quickly from other agents and sometimes we receive none at all. However, any feedback we do receive will be passed along as it is usually really valuable especially when it comes to the condition of the property and their opinion of the asking price.
The Open House
We also want to make sure that we are opening your home to get as much traffic in a relatively short amount of time as possible. And one primary way we do this is with an open house. We typically aim to host an open house the first weekend that your home is on the market. We’ll need a two-hour window to give people enough of a timeframe to come through the home. Your agents will come early to help set everything up and make sure all of the lights are on, signs are out, and the home is ready when the open house begins.
An open house is different from a private showing. You could have multiple parties coming through your home at one time and they could be with or without their agent. So, if picture day was priority one for your home looking like perfection, the open house is priority number two. You could potentially have a lot of eyes on your home, so we want it to look perfect.
Once your home is on the market, we don’t take our foot off the gas. The small things you do to make sure that a buyer has a great experience while viewing your home are going to go a long way toward getting the right offer for you. Your agent is a critical part of this process and we’ll be doing significant work behind the scenes to market your property effectively. And together, we will get your home sold.
Are you ready to get your home on the market? Give us a call today, if you are considering buying or selling a home. We’d love to help you and your family every step of the way.
Until Next Time,
Brianna and Keelie