Real Estate RelatedWindermere Real Estate April 25, 2011

Selling a home the right way!

Well inspection is complete and everything looks good. Closing set for 20 days from now and I couldn’t be happier. So what are the take aways from this process I just went through?

1. make sure your working with a skilled Realtor that knows the market your home is in.

2. Listen to what they have to tell you about the value of your home and the things you need to do to the home to present it in it’s best light.

3. Like my Dad use to say “every pot has a lid”.. point is, there is a buyer for your home and it only takes one good buyer to get your home sold.

4. Making sure your Realtor has skills when it comes to negotiation on your behalf. Marketing the home is one thing but then when an offer comes in there are decisions to be made and leaving money on the table is never a good thing.

5. Working with a Realtor without an Ego. Meaning that they work in an office with other highly skilled Realtors and they aren’t afraid to ask for price opinions and will run scenarios by others to make sure they are getting the best outcome for their client.

6. Listen more talk less.  You may think that you know how to sell your home but believe me there are more ways to do it wrong then there are to do it right.

7. After your Realtor has worked hard on your behalf show your appreciation by, recommending them on sites like Yelp, and Linkedin, and Zillow. Refer your friends to your Realtor it is the best compliment you can give to them.

customer servicesReal Estate Related April 7, 2011

Making your home shine.

So I’m going to be a seller in about a week. Prior to getting my house listed my Listing agent and I talked about what we should do so that my  home looks it’s best when it goes on the market.

1. Pricing it correctly. This is always a tough one. As the seller we always think that our home is worth more. This is the most important aspect of selling your home. You can have the home look amazing but if it is over priced it will just sit.

2. Staging the home. I know when I was a buyer going through homes I found it easier for me to see the home when it was staged instead of packed with the current owner’s stuff. The key word here is to (Minimize stuff) It needs to be neat and clean and open. Staging can really do wonders to the way a home is perceived by a potential buyer.

3. Outside upkeep. Getting the yard groomed and looking good. Again Minimizing is good here as well.

4. Small repairs, and touching up the paint if there are holes or nics in the wall. Making sure if there were any significant upgrades to the home that your agent is fully aware of the list.

5. After the  home is staged and shined then have a professional photographer come out and take pictures.

Bottom line: walk through your home and view it as a buyer. If there is something that would draw your attention in a negative way then fix it.

I’ll keep you posted as we move forward in this process.

Real Estate Related October 16, 2009

The word MARKETING does not exist in SOCIAL NETWORKING!

Ok, this is more of a rant; I’ll admit it.

I just read a great article courtesy of a Facebook post by  Rich Jacobsen.

“How to Take Your Social Networking to the next level”

The article was about social networking and had five really great points that we can all benefit from.  No where in the article did it say take your listings and post them to your friend’s list and advertise. This really drives me crazy that agents continue to do this. Ask yourself this question: If every time you were invited to a cocktail party you showed up with an A-board, a card table and flyers for all your listings, how many times do you think your friends would invite you back to their party? You know the answer.

We know you are in real estate, and we know that you have homes listed. If we want to see your listings we will go to a real estate website and look at them. Stop putting them on Facebook. There is one exception; if you happen to bring on a great listing that is unique or has something about it that people would find interesting then point that out, but don’t just take your craigslist link or your flyer page and paste it to your wall.  Please read the article I referenced above, be engaging, get connected with your network and stop selling.

Thanks for taking the time.