HOME SELLERS!

Spruce Your Home Up To Sell...

Regardless of the reason for wanting to sell your home, you wouldn’t be human if you didn't want to get the best possible price for it. Experience has taught that homes in good, clean condition sell faster and for more money than homes that need repairs and a good cleaning. Let us share with you some of the items that prospective buyers notice and take into consideration when shopping for a new home.

First impressions are so important to prospective buyers that I can hardly overstate the need for good curb appeal for your home. Landscaping that needs weeding or pruning may remind prospective buyers what a tedious job gardening can be. Nicely cared for beds raise expectations that you have been an excellent caretaker of your home.

Does your home need paint? Sometimes just painting the trim will make a world of difference. Is the driveway crumbling? Are there cracks in walkways? These are warning signs for prospective buyers. Is the yard full of clutter? Prospects interpret clutter inside or outside of the house as cramped conditions—not enough storage and poor general management of the home. You know what to do.

Let’s move inside. It may sound contradictory but you have another chance to make a good FIRST impression the moment prospective buyers walk through your front door. Does your house smell clean and fresh or have pet odors permeated the carpeting and drapes? Open shades to maximize the natural light coming inside.

The following is a list of major considerations that prospective buyers look for in a home:

CLEANLINESS—Make your kitchen and bathrooms gleam. Shampoo carpet and wipe handprints off the walls. There’s nothing like a good coat of fresh paint to make a house sparkle.

CLUTTER—Prospective buyers will look in your closets, cupboards and inside your oven. Take a look at the furniture in your rooms. If you have so much furniture there is little room for moving about, consider storing some items until after you sell.

REPAIRS—Buyers will flush toilets, turn on faucets, check areas around bathtubs and showers for signs of disrepair or leaks. Change your furnace filters and clean out your gutters.

WANT MORE SPECIFIC DETAILS FOR PREPARING YOUR HOME TO SELL? Often times the best place to start is with a professional Comparative Marketing Analysis (CMA) that will give you a picture of high, medium and low pricing realities. This valuable information may help you decide whether or not to invest in necessary home repairs before listing or advertising your home. We provide this service at no charge for homeowners who are thinking about selling their home.

Call us and we can walk through and around your home with the keen eyes of a prospective buyer.

Direct (719) 930-7817 We'll promptly return your call.

Pricing - Call us to discuss YOUR home's value
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of selling a home is listing it at the correct price. It's one of several areas where the assistance of a full-time skilled real estate agent can more than pay for itself.

TOO HIGH CAN BE AS BAD AS TOO LOW
If the listing price is too high, you'll miss out on a percentage of buyers looking in the price range where your home should be. This is the flaw in thinking that you'll always have the opportunity to accept a lower offer. Chances are the offers won't even come in, because the buyers who would be most interested in your home have been scared off by the price and aren't even taking the time to look. By the time the price is corrected, you've already lost exposure to a large group of potential buyers who may have bought something else in their price range.

The listing price becomes even trickier to set when prices are quickly rising or falling. It's critical to be aware of where and how fast the market is moving - both when setting the price and when negotiating an offer. Again, an experienced, well-trained agent is always in touch with market trends - often even to a greater extent than appraisers, who typically focus on what a property is worth if sold as-is, right now.

When working with a real estate agent, it's critical that you have full confidence in that agent's experience and education. A skilled, knowledgeable agent should be able to explain to you exactly why your home needs to be priced at a certain level - compared to recent listings and sales of homes similar to yours.

Experienced agents also know exactly what the current pool of buyers are looking for in relation to particular styles and price ranges of properties. A skilled agent can recommend changes that will enhance the salability of your home, thus increasing the price - and/or decreasing the length of time before a sale. EXTENDED TIME ON MARKET works against you.

Little touches can generate big returns.
Some of these changes may be cosmetic, involving literally no expense on your part. It might be as simple as moving out some of your furniture and adjusting window coverings to best display desirable qualities of the home. Other changes might demand an investment, but the cost will likely more than pay for itself in the final sales price or timeliness of the sale.

It's critical to keep all these aspects of pricing in mind, regardless of whom you choose to list your home

Fresh Approach to Failed Listing
It is disappointing to put your home up for sale, expecting it to sell immediately, and find that you still own it after several months. The longer the home stays on the market, the more likely agents and prospects will think something is wrong with it. The home will be shown less, making it more difficult to find the right buyer for the home.

The REASONS properties fail to sell include one or more of the following: PRICE, LOCATION, and CONDITION. To successfully sell, a correction in these areas will have to be made. You rarely are given a second chance at making a first impression so we have to create one. To maximize NEW MARKETING EFFORTS, all factors must be considered.

PRICE is the single most important factor in a successful sale. It can overcome a poor location and bad condition. A price adjustment must exceed an invisible threshold to induce increased activities. For instance, if a home is priced at $209,900, a reduction will probably not encourage additional activity unless it brings the price below $200,000.

Most buyers, regardless of the price range they're in, spend everything they have for a home and it's the most expensive thing they've ever bought. They have to live in it the way they buy it until they can save enough to redo it.

It is BETTER TO REPLACE carpet and floor covering with something neutral than to give the buyer a discount to pick their own. It is better to replace wallpaper and repaint with neutral tones than to give the buyer a discount to do it themselves. It is better to replace appliances that are needed than to provide allowances. Seeing these fresh updates carries much more positive effect than the dissapointment of touring a home that needs lots of updating/refreshing. Buyers will always deduct more in their offer to you than it will cost you to make the repairs or improvements. CORRECT THE OBVIOUS OBJECTIONS prior to your next showing.

If two or more homes of the same size are on the market in the same area, for the same price, the one in the best condition will probably sell first. If two or more homes of the same size are on the market in the same area, in the same condition, the one with the best price will probably sell first. BE NEXT TO SELL.

One successful tactic is to take your home off the market and re-enter having adjusted your price and or condition. Then brag (advertise) about it! This will create excitement among the buying public and most importantly among the agents in your area.

EVERY HOME NEEDS AN EXCITING FEATURE. The price range of the home will determine what the feature needs to be. Ceiling fans and a dishwaher are enough at $100,000 while updated kitchens, deluxe master suites, landscaping, and entertaining areas are more critical as price range climbs. If your home doesn't have the "exciting features" to match your price range, maybe that is the reason it hasn't sold. PRICE or CONDITION may have to become your exciting feature.

I've got ideas that create sales. Call me to discuss the particulars of your home and specific ideas that will help you be successful with your sale.

Ken Asher
Broker Associate
Keller Williams Partners Realty
460 N. Wooten Rd Blvd. Suite 110
Colorado Springs, CO. 80916

Call (719) 930-7817