What You Need To Know About Selling A Home Privately

If you are getting ready to sell a property you own and have made the decision that you want to give it a go yourself as a private sale, it is super important that you do the preparation that a quality agent would do if you want to protect your price as much as possible. Because any home for sale is being sold in competition with other properties, not in isolation. You may have sold a car privately for $20,000 with no hassles, but there are a lot more moving parts in a house sale that can influence the result, and the money you are playing with is far more significant. Here are 5 tips to make sure you get the best you can from your sale;

1. Prepare Like A Display Home

A Home does not just sell itself. Even a supermodel is dressed and made up by experts to shine on the runway or cover shoot. Declutter, clean everywhere, garden, pressure clean clean driveways, paths, exteriors.. Hire furniture if you need to. Seek out advice from an interior designer. It could be something as small as choosing a colour palette if you are doing some re-painting or placing the furniture in the best spot.

2. Invest In Quality Marketing

Just because you are skipping the agent, doesn’t mean you need to skip the promotion. Particularly because there are going to be some channels of enquiry that you wont have access to like an agent’s database of buyers looking to purchase or their social media presence. Many private sale homes that come up for sale you can tell immediately are being sold by the owner because of how it looks. Things like photos are taken on an phone, attention to detail in the home has been missed.

Hire a professional photographer in the real estate space who will probably do the floor plan as well. If the home has more features to show off, get a video done as well. You don’t need to appear in it, but the immersive nature of video creates a higher level of emotional connection. Create a facebook page for your property and put money towards a paid campaign. There are other things, but the bottom line is Spread the reach so more people know about it, and make your home sparkle

3. Do Your Homework

Get around to other open homes in your area similar to your own, understand their features, and the pros and cons. Know the sale prices. Know about the other homes that are for sale that buyers interested in your home would also look at. Buyers will want to buy yours as cheap as possible and will use other homes as a weapon like saying “The house around the corner is cheaper”. Understand what the value points in your home are. You will need to raise them as gentle persuasion

4. Keep Track of All Activity

I get amazed when I get called in to have a chat with owners who havn;’t had luck selling themselves and when I ask how many people through, who were most interested, what was the feedback they cannot answer it because they never collected information of people coming through. You need to follow up, ask questions. You might be given negative information on presentation that you could fix before the next inspection. You need names and phone numbers. Sometimes a prospective buyer just looks at so many homes that they lose track, and a phone call can prompt them. If you change your price, get back to everyone and let them know

5. Don’t Drop The Ball Until The Sale Is Definite

If you are not use to the ups and downs of real estate sales, it is easy to become complacent when you have accepted an offer thinking you are sold. Never think it is done until you are unconditionally exchanged. Finance can fall over, buyers change their mind, building reports can come back and scare them away. Keep recording the activity like point 4, don’t close off other opportunities or offers. It might feel like you are doing the right thing, but trusting too much can cost you both money and lost plan B opportunities