How To Bring Viewers To Your Property When It’s For Sale
Are you ready to put your house up for sale and move into better (although not necessarily bigger) things? It’s a hard decision to make, especially if you’ve lived somewhere for a long time and you’ve made a lot of memories there, but once you have made that decision, you don’t want things to take too long - you just want to get moving.
That’s one of the most frustrating things about selling your home; the time it can take. And it will take even longer if you don’t get many (or any!) viewers, which could mean you take the property off the market and give up on your future goals either for now or indefinitely.
So of course, it makes sense to do whatever you can to ensure that viewers come to your home and take a look around. Assuming it’s really ready to sell and you’ve priced it correctly, then once people come through the door, the rest should be much easier, and you can move on with your plans and find a great new place to live in.
All of that makes it sound easy, doesn’t it? It makes it sound as though persuading people to come and view your home and then buy it doesn’t take too much effort. Well, the truth is that there are definitely some things you need to do and some work you’ll need to get done, but if you’re really serious about moving, that won’t seem like such a hardship when you consider the positive results. With that in mind, here are some useful tips to help you bring viewers to your property when it’s for sale.
Choose A Good Realtor
Although there are plenty of things you can do for yourself when you sell your home - and most of the things on this list will be jobs for you to put into motion - it all starts with a great realtor. When you’ve got a professional, knowledgeable realtor like Ryan Mann on board to help you sell your home, you can rest assured that you’ll have the best chance of people coming to view your property.
One thing a realtor will do is to value your property. They’ll have insight into the local property market, and they’ll know what other comparable properties recently sold for. Add to that their experience and what they know of buyers, and they’ll be able to come up with an accurate value for your home. This is far more important than you might think because people aren’t going to come and view your property if it’s out of their price range, but they’re also not going to come and view it if it seems the property is overpriced. And they’ll know it’s overpriced because they’ll be doing the same research as you when it comes to what’s on the market and what they can buy - it’s definitely not possible to try to overcharge these days. If you do, people just aren’t going to be interested.
Your realtor will also do a lot more besides just making sure you’re not over or underpricing your property. They’ll market it in all the ways they can, including on property portals where most people are going to come across them when they’re searching; these specialist sites and apps are often potential buyers’ first port of call. They’ll also arrange for good photos and marketing material, plus they’ll have plans drawn up so people can see at a glance the size of the rooms and how everything is laid out.
Choosing the right realtor shouldn’t be a quick job; there’s a lot to consider, so make sure you do your research and speak to at least three different people to find the right one for you - it’s going to make all the difference when it comes to getting people through the door.
Tidy Up
Your property could be the loveliest one around, and it could be priced perfectly, but if it’s not tidy and clean, you’re still going to have problems getting people to view it, and if you have problems getting people to view it, you’ll have problems selling it, period.
We mentioned photos above, and they’re going to be crucial when it comes to marketing your property, but before a professional comes to take those photos, why not take some of your own? They don’t have to be perfect, but it’s best to take them in daylight to get the best look at what your home really looks like. The thing is, sometimes it’s difficult to see whether your home is messy or not because you’re living right in it, and it can all just seem normal; you might not notice it anymore. By taking photos and perhaps then leaving the house to go through them, you’ll instantly get a better idea of what your home is really like - and if it’s as clean and tidy as it should be.
It’s also often a good idea to have an objective person (someone who doesn’t live in the house, ideally) to go through the photos as well, or just to take a tour of your home without you there with them. They’ll be in a much better position to note down all the issues and report back. Don’t get offended if they talk about mess and grime - this is useful information, and you can get to work cleaning and tidying before the professional photos are taken, thus ensuring that your home looks its absolute best when it’s being marketed. If someone sees a clean, tidy, nice-looking home, they’re going to be a lot more interested in coming to view it than if that same home is mucky and full of junk - you’d be exactly the same.
Cleaning is one thing, but you’ll also need to declutter (in fact, decluttering can help with cleaning because you’ll have more room to move around and you’ll be able to get to areas much more easily - areas that you might have ignored before) to keep things tidy. What’s great about this idea is that you’re moving anyway, so there will come a time when you have to pack everything in your home up and remove it. You might as well get started by boxing up anything that’s not really needed, ensuring your home is clean and clear and, by lucky coincidence, giving you a much-needed headstart on your packing.
Don’t just pack everything up, though. You’ll also need somewhere to put it (your garage might work, but you can also hire a storage unit to make things easier), and you need to check that you’re not packing things that you’ll only end up throwing out once you move and start unpacking again - it’s a waste of time. Declutter now and throw out the things you really don’t have any need for, and unpacking will be a lot easier. In the here and now, your home will be cleaner and tidier and much more tempting for any potential buyer to come and take a look at.
Do Small Repairs
The internet is a fantastic resource when it comes to selling your home, and that means it’s a fantastic resource when it comes to buying a new home as well. As we’ve mentioned above, using specialist property portals and websites to find a property has really changed the way people buy property - they have much more chance to look through all the information and really dissect it all before they decide which properties they’re going to visit. And there will be many properties; there’s a lot of competition when you sell a property, and as a homeowner trying to sell, you need to get ahead of that competition and persuade people to book an appointment to see your property over and above anyone else’s.
If people are looking as closely at the images as they should be before making a decision about which properties to view, they’re going to spot anything that’s not quite right, and that includes any repairs that have to be made. They’ll see if there’s a knob missing from a kitchen cabinet, and they’ll notice a stain on the living room carpet. They’ll definitely spot any mold or damp, and they’ll know if the backyard is in a bad state.
These things, no matter how small they might be, are exactly the things that will make people bypass your property and move on to the next. They don’t want to move into a home and have to start making repairs right away, especially if those repairs are going to cost money - moving is expensive. But if you can make these repairs in advance, so that there’s nothing to see when potential buyers examine the photos and read the description of your property, they’ll be much more inclined to book an appointment to view. They might even be more inclined to put in a higher offer if they’re interested in the property because they know there’s nothing they need to do once they move in. Although these repairs might take some time and potentially might cost you something to fix, it’s well worth it if you want more people to view your home.