Seller Advantages
Selling your home can be a stressful process. Leyla's experience will help you navigate the market, make your property stand out and help you sell your home within your time and price goals. Leyla Phelan will help you:
- Price your property competitively
- Market your property to other real estate agents and the public
- Determine how best to show your property
- Help you objectively evaluate offers (including low ball offers)
- Expedite the sale of your home through closing
Professional Staging Tips
A property can be in the perfect location, well constructed and meet all a buyers needs, but if it doesn't perform well at showings and open-houses it's bound to stay on the market longer than necessary. Here are a few quick and inexpensive tips to help your home show at its full potential.
1. Let in the Light - Opening your drapes and let the sun do it's job as the world's best decorator. Dark, unlit rooms show as small and depressing to potential buyers. Don't potential buys with the impression of a dark and claustrophobic property.
2. You should do windows! - The clean smell and light will give you so much bang for your buck (or arm muscle) than this.
3. Sweep those steps You've heard of curb appeal? Stand out on the block or balcony by showing off fresh well groomed plants. Mow the grass, sweep the stoop and pick up any random leaves and trash. Put away lawn tools, kids' toys and discard or store old outdoor furniture that doesn't add to the beauty of the outside. A few colorful annuals or put a few nicely planted containers on or near the entryway make a big difference
4. Clutter Control You have heard this a thousand times, but de-cluttering and organizing a home is very important and not just to make the place look neat. A cluttered home looks smaller. The pictures, knick-knacks, even and personal art collections are distracting to many buyers. Remember some people just can't visualize. You want to make the process as easy as possible for them by minimizing your personal items. An easy rule of thumb: pack up or eliminate 50% of the contents of each room. It sounds like a lot - but it will be less to pack on moving day!
5. Clean your kitchen and bathrooms The kitchen may be old but it can still sparkle. A good degreaser goes a long way. Hit those countertops with whatever it takes to remove stains and discoloration. Wash the front of all cupboards, appliances and floors scrubbed for the life of the listing. De-clutter in the kitchen helps too, extra countertop appliances and refrigerator magnets and art should be the first to go. Show off your counter space by having as little on it as possible Bathrooms must shine. Older bathrooms can be charming and a new shower curtain and fresh towels on the counter may be all you need to keep buyers from thinking 'update'.
6. Freshness Counts - Think about all the senses as you prep your home, dusting those hard-to-reach places, clean litter boxes and freshly washed blinds can make a huge difference in the impression your home's aroma leaves on potential buyers. Other handy open house day tricks, pop corn, chocolate chip cookies and baked apples with cinnamon all add a 'come and stay' air to you home. Don't be afraid to ask for help - we understand, because we are busy too! Let us put you in touch with excellent, reliable people who can help clean and stage for your open house! .
How to Handle Low Ball Offers
If your house has been on the market for over 3 months, you may have already dropped your price. Now with your property listed at a great deal price you're waiting for the buyers to rush in and make their offers.
But when the potential buyer does appear, they offer you even less than what you just reduced to. So how do you handle a low-ball offer?
Remember, it's now a negotiation game. Panicing, getting angry, losing sleep or rejecting the offer outright, could cost you’re a valuable opportunity.
Several things have happened before this offer came in. The buyer, with his agent, has researched the market, walked through as many as 30 or 50 properties, conducted a study on the value of the property and written an offer for your house. Remember, they chose your house. They could have written on another, but they selected yours.
First of all, do an analysis of your own goals and needs. How much do you really need to come out of this house to meet your goals of moving to your next home? What could you really live with and what amount are you going to counter. Remember this last point what are you going to counter? This is assuming that you're going to stay in the game.
Next, conduct a comparative market analysis of the house once again. What's happened in the market to get this buyer to make the offer. It might be that your house is now worth that amount. And if it is that's okay, because it probably means the house you wanted to buy up into is also worth less. At the worse, you're going to take away less money. The best thing to look at, however, is that now you're going to buy up with a smaller down payment because the buy-up property is also less.
Now, let's start the negotiation. Keep in mind, this can be a long haul. Keep it alive as long as the buyer will keep it alive. Give up a little bit at a time. If you reduced the house to $324,000, expecting an offer of $319,999 with closing costs of $10,000 then start there. You're already willing to accept a net of $309,999, so you're not really that far off. Understand you're not going to get top dollar with no seller subsidy. So come down to $320,000 and give them their closing costs. So now, your net has come up to $315,000.
When they counter with $309,000 and still want the $5,000 in closing. (Now our net's at $304,000). It’s OK – Try to think of it as ‘when you started, you were $324,000 apart’ Now, you're only $5,999 away from the net you were willing to accept in the first place.
Here's a negotiation tip keep this civil. Use a lot of complements about the offer, the buyers and the agent. "What a great offer. Thanks so much for writing. We are very excited about selling this house to you."
You want the buyer agent and his/her clients to know you wanting to work with them. You've been waiting six months for this day and you want to keep everyone engaged in the process to get your goals met sold and on your way to your new home .
Now offer your final counter (or maybe next to final).
At this point, you know the buyers want to buy and your sellers are ready to start packing, so emphasize that you're very close. Use a dialogue like this: "We are so close. We have some goals to meet, just like you do. And I hope we can bring this together to get us both where we want to be."
Now make that final offer and stick with it. If you offer $314,000, they definitely get what they need and you get closer to your final net which at this point would be $309,000 just $999 off of your initial goal. Then you know if it goes forward or you're back on the market. However, don't be so stubborn that you lose the lone buyer for under $1000
If the buyer is stretching and this won't work, this is when the honesty comes out. The agent may tell you, If we can't do $309,000, it's just not going to work. It goes too far beyond their qualification." Then you can decide whether to keep it on the market (hoping you don't have to drop the price again), or you cut the loss and move forward with settlement.
Be patient with the process. Don't get upset, remember, they're trying to meet goals just like you are. By working together, both can get what they want.