Top 5 Things You Should Know to Help Sell Your Home Fast

Top 5 Things You Should Know to Help Sell Your Home Fast

RISMEDIA—While many markets around the country continue to experience challenges as the market makes its slow turnaround, Ann Arbor real estate is selling fast, and it’s because we follow some simple rules.

1. Curb appeal is key to selling your home

If it looks rundown from the outside, then it probably is on the inside too. Curb appeal is all about first impressions. Buyers want to feel like they could live in a home from the moment they pull up in front of it. Basic improvements such as exterior painting, cutting the grass and planting some flowers improve the look of a home from the outside tremendously.

2. Deodorize

Every home has a unique odor, especially if pets are present. Be sure to professionally clean the carpet and the furniture and replace carpets if necessary. Keep pets clean and the home free from dander. Consider taking pets and pet cages if present in the home with you when you leave for showings.

3. Really want to sell your home? Repair and repaint

A little putty and paint can make all the difference. Repair damaged dry wall, gouges in wood surfaces and paint the walls. Bright colors such as those in children’s rooms should be repainted with a neutral color. We like to repaint our Ann Arbor homes with a neutral shade that will be attractive to a wide variety of buyers.

4. Put away your personal collections

Here, the old saying that one man’s treasure is another man’s junk rings true. De-clutter your home by packing up knick-knacks, heirlooms, personal collections, and even family photos. After all, they are special only to you and your goal is to make the home presentable to the widest number of people possible. Expensive collections should be packed away as well to keep them safe.

5. No guns, drugs or valuables

If you own a gun, be sure it’s unloaded and lock it away. Don’t leave it accessible to anyone viewing your home, especially anyone with children. The same is true for prescription drugs, fine jewelry, valuable art work, money and anything else you want to keep safe.

Sharon Snyder is the President and CEO of Prudential Snyder & Company Realtors in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Real Estate Contact & Prospect Management

James Kimmons*

It's always interesting to see a successful real estate agent or broker working hard and long to keep their information systems updated, their listing information accurate and closing transactions on track.

Then, when you hear that same REALTOR® discussing their next training or continuing education, it's a course or seminar on building more business. So they learn some new business building strategies, which if they work, will have them working longer and harder, with the probability of quality degradation and dropped balls increasing. Since repeat business and referrals are so important in this business, a seamless transaction without major upset should be everyone's goal.

Most of us would do just as well building business if we devote the time and energy to implement strategies we already know. By using sensible technology to manage your contacts, listings and transactions for efficiency, you can free up valuable time to do the behaviors and activities necessary to grow your business.

Many of those in that growth phase of the business curve make the decision to put on one or more assistants. Then they have to take the time to train and manage, not even talking about the overhead expense. Not that I'm against assistants, as we'll talk about how to make your team more efficient with intranets in a section devoted to intranets. However, what if you could do more in less time and with more accuracy. You could delay that first assistant and save that overhead expense in time and money. Let's bullet some of the important things we need in Real Estate Contact and Project Management integration:

• We need to keep track of contacts and buyer/listing prospects with their contact information.
  Once we have the contacts in our database, we need to be able to market to them via email, snail mail and/or telephone.
• Once a listing prospect becomes an active listing, we need the ability manage the listing process. This includes tasks with reminders for the many to-do's required to set up and maintain a listing.
• We need to regularly communicate what we've done for that listing, including marketing and other progress.
• Once we put a listing under contract, or write a contract for a buyer, we need to manage the closing transaction requirements and progress. This includes a large number of deadlines and tasks that need to happen in a timely and accurate manner.
• We need to report to our client the progress of the transaction, including its related inspections, appraisals, etc.
• After closing, we want the ability to regularly communicate with our client to keep our name in their mind for future referrals.

Those are the basic requirements for a good solid real estate contact and project management plan. Some are doing all of these things. Some are doing some of them. All too many are doing few of these things. Contact management is probably the most-used of the two, but there are a lot of us who do not have a good project management solution in place. Thus we don't have all those tasks pre-built so that we can just apply them to a new listing or closing and have the task list create itself.

Author is a About.com Guide

Preparing Your Sellers for Home Showings

Introduce sellers to the realities of showing their home

You've already talked with your sellers about the physical work involved to get a home ready to show, but have you mentioned other events that may take place while the house is on the market? Giving home sellers a basic education in Buyers 101 will help prepare them for the realities of showing their house.

Be Ready to Show at All Times

Sellers should be aware that same-day and even last-minute requests for showings are common, so a seller with a '24 hour notice to show' stipulation often cuts himself out of a good chunk of the buying market. The only standard hefty lag time that should be necessary is when you must give ample notice to a tenant.

Once a house gets tagged difficult to show by agents, you won't receive as many calls to show it. If sellers choose to make showings difficult, be sure to tell them now that it will cut down on showings--and fewer showings equals fewer potential buyers.

Keep it Flexible

Explain to your home sellers that most agents do try to arrive within the scheduled showing time, but sometimes it isn't possible. They may get stuck in traffic, or the house they saw prior to your showing took longer than expected. It happens, and sometimes it happens too late to be fixed by a phone call.

Encourage sellers to stay away from home a little longer than they think is necessary, just to make sure they don't interrupt a showing.

Sellers Who Want to Be Present

This is nearly always a bad idea. Sellers think agents and buyers won't be able to find everything, that they must be there to point out important features. Truthfully, most just want to be present to see buyer reaction firsthand.

Sellers should be aware that at the very least buyers feel uncomfortable when they are present, and that it can actually kill a sale. Buyers often won't even open closet or cabinet doors when the seller is home, and when they cannot view a house comfortably, they'll hurry up and move on to the next one.

Sellers want to talk, and not just about the house. You never know when a buyer will be turned off by the mood of the seller, or by a statement the seller makes. Buyers are there to look at the house, not chit chat about hobbies or the weather or worse--politics and other controversial topics.

If sellers must be home during a showing, counsel them to go outside or stay put in one location, not wander around with the agent and buyers.

Sellers Who Want YOU To Be Present for All Showings

If you're selling a large estate or complicated property, it might be the norm to plan on being present for all showings, but it's not necessary or smart for the typical house.

Explain that other agents generally feel uncomfortable with the selling agent hanging around, listening to and participating in conversations with potential buyers. If the other agent is representing the buyers as a buyer's agent, she won't be free to have open discussions about the house in front of you.

There's another negative that may be more important: busy agents don't have time to work around your schedule. Requiring the listing agent to be present for all showings is another way to give the house that difficult to show reputation.

If your sellers are worried about theft of small items, they should store them away. Packing up collections and small personal items is part of the process they should have already gone through to prepare the house for showings.

Pets Must Be Controlled

Pets should be out of the house during showings, especially large dogs, since many people are afraid of them. A gruff bark coming from inside the house is enough to make some home buyers turn around at the front door.

If there are pet odors, talking with your seller about the subject can be tricky, because most people are not aware of odors in their own home. You may need to conjure up your best be-tactful mode to deal with that subject, but it must be dealt with. Your sellers don't want buyers to remember the home as the house that smells.

Gaining Seller Cooperation

Share showing information in a 'did you know this about buyers' tone, rather than simply telling a seller what he must do. Explaining why these steps are important helps sellers realize that it's in their best interests to comply.

1. Consider putting showing advice on paper in an easy-to-read format. Give the seller a day or so to digest the information, then ask if he has any questions about the information.
2. Show that you respect the seller's opinions by asking what he thinks are the home's best features, then spotlight those features in a flyer or brochure that can be left on a table for prospective buyers.

Sellers usually just want to help. It's up to you to figure out a way to give them a role in the sales process, one that is truly helpful and that won't have a negative impact on showings.

The Right Technology to Enhance Your Real Estate Business

In today’s world, controlling your personal and professional relationship is the key to success. Infact success in real estate business starts with relationships.

However, with the advent of social and professional networking sites such as facebook, twitter, linkedin etc. though staying in touch with more number of people from your network has become easier, the process itself has become complex. This is because of the sheer number of friends or colleagues who are in your network or group. On the other hand, however large network you have, you can’t take risk of ignoring anybody in your network because may be it is one of your former colleague who introduces you to a potential customer who gives you a landmark deal. Or a classmate in your network, working in another organization, may help you secure a key partnership. Therefore you need to stay in touch with your network more effectively to create new opportunities.

In other words, with the increasing importance of social and professional networking sites, you need a tool that can help you maximize the potential of your relationships by helping you build rapport with new people, stay in touch with people in your network, and find the right person for the task at hand.

While looking for an application with these features, I stumbled upon ConnectedHQ. Though, some improvements may be required in this application, overall it seems perfect for real estate professionals. It offers the benefits of:

• real estate contact & prospect management
• social network integration
• e-mail integration with contacts and prospects
• calendar appointments scheduling
• task management
• extensive notes management synced with contacts & easy to enter & search notes

Cost of the application seems reasonable compared to other such applications available in the market. But before using this application, you yourself find out more about ConnectedHQ to see its usability for your specific needs.