Home buying and, more importantly, home selling doesn’t have to be stressful. But often, for the seller, the process of selling their home is challenging, complex, and stressful.
As real estate agents, the goal is to provide the best service for your clients possible. Often that includes doing more than listing the home on MLS and answering a few calls from buyer’s agents.
Removing stress from your client’s experience requires educating them on the process, making it as smooth of a process as possible.
When you add the stress of selling a home fast, it requires special attention to detail and providing a service that goes above and beyond what the typical agent provides. Understand that selling a home fast can leave money on the table, so having a strategic reason for selling quickly is crucial to providing your client with the best offers and deals on their home.
If you’re discussing selling a home for your client and they need to sell it quickly, then you need to include these 10 tips for selling a home fast.
1. Showing Your Expertise As An Agent
Helping people sell their homes quickly and for top dollar is the fiduciary obligation of the seller’s agent. You’re tasked with finding a buyer that provides a great offer and presenting it to your clients as soon as possible.
Reaching that point of the deal, however, takes showing your clients your expertise in guiding them through the process, explaining the importance of preparing the home to sell, a timeline of actions, and the next steps in putting a home on the market–all before accepting offers.
The heavy lifting work is done to showcase your skills before you get the listing. For example, how you prospect and nurture your client, providing detailed market analysis and explaining real estate trends to them, providing a comprehensive CMA report, as well as marketing and sales success stories that provide “proof” of how you will aid your clients to achieve a great deal as quickly as possible.
Some factors, such as market trends, buyer’s versus seller’s market, and local and global economic forces, are outside your control.
The key, then, is to focus on what you do control. So, first, you control how you market and promote the home.
You control showings and create traffic to the home in creative ways such as creating an event–” super open house” that becomes a thing that people will want to come to, and you can control the amount of grunt work you do with your sphere and network with other agents.
The added benefit of showing your expertise in creative ways is that as people come to see the listing and make offers, you can promote those activities to your prospects and sphere, gaining a potential new source for leads along the way.
2. Price To Sell Vs. Price Top-Dollar
There are two thoughts on pricing a home; you can price for top dollar or price to sell.
The difference between the two thoughts is clear. Pricing your listing for top-dollar means taking an analytical look at where recent similar home sales have been and cross-referencing current market trends to price at the highest price for similar homes available.
The problem with pricing for top-dollar is that you will be in comparison with homes of similar design, size, and yard that may be priced lower. Also, “sticker shock” can turn people off regardless of the upgrades and features that are included in the home.
Sticker shock is a descriptor of seeing a value-priced much higher than expected.
There’s a reason car dealers sell at prices like $32,999 rather than $33,000 because the perceived price, although only a dollar different, creates an emotional backlash to consumers. The reality, however, is that with added fees and other add-ons to the price, you’re paying more than the sticker price. So it’s a pricing strategy to get people disarmed and in a more flexible buying mood.
With the strategy of pricing to sell, you’re taking a different approach. This strategy focuses on pricing at, or slightly below, similar homes on the market to get people “in the door.”
Getting people to view and nibble on the price is the goal here, with the outcome being that you can create a bidding war and get multiple offers.
There are multiple ways to go about drumming up business and enticing more offers.
- Price at or just below the current average market value
- Marketing is essential–have a plan with different target markets and ways to get your message across to them.
- Social media is crucial, but not all social media is the same. Leverage Facebook for landing pages, Instagram for lead capture, TikTok to promote, and YouTube to educate.
- Online landing page for the home that includes specs and essential details with tons of pictures.
- Notify all visiting agents and prospects of a deal once it comes through and let them know you’ll be presenting offers by the end of the day (or the next 24 hours depending on the time of day).
By promoting the home in a creatively priced way, you should be able to create competition for the home, and competition drives up prices.
Often pricing for top-dollar makes sense when inventory is extremely low and demand is exceptionally high, as we saw in the 2020-21 market cycle. But conversely, as inventory increases and demands slow, creative pricing can still yield the best deals if you can price according to market demands.
3. Time The Market
Real estate has seasons that create an ebb and flow. Therefore, timing your listing is crucial to selling your home quickly. I’m assuming you have the luxury to time your listing with the seasonal demands here, and if you do, then understanding the market fluctuations is essential.
Springtime is when the market starts to warm up, and being first on the market can help create competition for the home with the correct pricing strategy. The downside is that a lot of the activity for homes is still “warming up” and not as committed as during the peak time.
Summer is the peak season for home sales. Understanding the reasons for this trend will also give you an advantage in pricing and marketing the listing. In addition, school trends influence summer, when kids are out of school, promoted to a new grade or graduated entirely.
Each of these school factors creates target markets for you to seek to get the best deal for your clients.
Another reason summer months are the peak period is that people have more discretionary time available to them. As a result, they are more prone to have slowdowns at work, freeing them up to do things such as a home shop.
For cities and areas near military bases, summer is the time period that either active duty has received their new orders or anticipated a move in the fall. Therefore, they are either actively moving soon or preparing for the eventuality of moving in the near future and are good markets to target, work with, and sell quickly.
In the case of the military (or industry news that says an employer will be relocating), you can reach out to agents in other states and areas and create a referral network to promote and work with for your listing.
Winter months are traditionally the slowest, and there are a lot of factors why. First, it’s not inviting to move during the winter. Kids and jobs are in full swing, holidays are around the corner, and people don’t like to uproot from the holidays. That doesn't mean there’s no market, but it is a little trickier to sell during the slower months.
4. Clean And Declutter
One of the most overlooked yet essential aspects of selling a home fast is making it as presentable as possible. Making the home look move-in ready regardless of the age of the home and the age of the appliances can go a long way toward creating a desirable and inviting home for potential buyers.
Cleaning the home creates a “freshness” that buyers appreciate, making the house more desirable. Also, decluttering space, minimizing furniture and fixtures, and opening windows and blinds all create more of an open space concept that highlights room size and lighting.
Bright rooms painted in neutral tones are much more attractive than dark, cluttered rooms painted in color schemes (like red) that evoke an emotional response. Besides, buyers are creating mental plans of how they want to decorate the space, so having minimal items and neutral tones makes it easier for the buyer to “picture” themselves at the house.
Also, be sure to eliminate as many personal items and pictures as possible. The key here is to allow the buyer to envision what it would be like for them to live there, and removing personal effects and items makes it easier for their imagination to take hold.
5. Improve Curb Appeal
Making a significant first impression is the objective of curb appeal. Curb appeal is the look of the home as seen by the potential buyer as they pull up to the house. After that, you can invest as little as you’d like or create a complete overhaul–depending on the seller’s desire.
Curb appeal can provide a significant return on investment; a simple paint job, some potted plants, and basic landscaping can create a much more attractive front of the house, increasing curb appeal.
The key here is to create an early suggestion that the house is a great place to live, is attractive to the buyer (and potential visitors to the house), and leaves a significant first impression to set the mood as the buyer tours the home.
6. Get Professional Photographs
Showcasing the property in the best lighting shouldn't be something done by you or the owner. Instead, you need to hire a professional photographer specializing in real estate to show the home in the best way.
An experienced real estate photographer will know how to highlight each room, showcasing space and openness to provide the buyer to visualize how they would utilize the space before visiting.
But don’t just hire any real estate photographer. Sure, you may have someone in the office that everyone uses, but to sell the home quickly (and further highlight your skills as an agent), you want to be creative with your pictures.
You should consider 3-D imaging that you can upload and share on social, as well as drone footage for neighborhood and property outlines.
It’s a cool way to market your listing, people enjoy it, and it’s a relatively cheap expense.
7. Highlight Unique Features
Every home has a story; you need to think of ways to highlight what makes your listing unique. For example, if you have long-tile wood floors, highlight those. If the home shows real pride in ownership, highlight that as well.
Perhaps the bathrooms have all been recently upgraded with new features and vanities, which could be a significant thing to promote.
To make your listing unique from other homes on the market, you should promote and highlight your pictures, videos, and other marketing material.
8. Write Great Listing Descriptions
After your client has settled on a price, you’ve established the marketing approach you’ll take, and the home is ready to show, it’s time to write your listing description for the MLS and your social media channels.
Remember that when you’re writing your listing descriptions, keep them short but attractive, highlighting what makes this property unique and desirable.
- Write your description using keywords and phrases that stand out to buyers and uniquely showcase the house.
- Include relevant details about the neighborhood, such as location, local schools, shopping, or other attractive elements that will make the property desirable to your target market.
- Use your professional photos and videos with links to more content–that means you need a dedicated landing page or website for your traffic to head over and check out.
- Include showing details and opportunities to view.
- Have a sense of urgency to the listing, such as “all offers will be presented by such-and-such date and time.”
The more you highlight the uniqueness and create a sense of exclusiveness to your listing, the more desirable the property is. The strategy here is to increase the home's appeal and increase demand, and competition should follow suit, helping speed up your sale and drive higher prices.
9. Be Creative With Marketing
You have a killer listing description, awesome photos, videos, and prices to drive competition; the worst thing you could do is publish to the MLS and leave it alone.
To sell the home fast, you need to be creative with your marketing efforts.
You should consider the best practices for each social media channel and put an effort there that matches the channel. For example, people are on Instagram for still photos, and you could do what an average agent does and post pictures of the house with a banner that says “for sale.”
Or, take a more creative approach and show the pictures on Insta in creative ways with staging (and possibly people in the background) to showcase the photo.
Use some before and after photos to show the home’s potential or comparison between homes in the area and their curb appeal–be sure to highlight the homes that match your curb appeal and not overshadow them or make the neighborhood appear undesirable.
Consider running ads to your listings through paid Facebook ads to generate interest and engagement that you can use to further market the home.
For YouTube videos, you can talk about upgrades to increase a home’s value and show yours before and after videos of the home you’ve listed as examples of how it improved the listing price.
On TikTok, you can do a fun, entertaining video that highlights rooms but also is light and entertaining.
The key takeaway here is to use the strength of each social media channel for what it is best known for, don’t try to shoe-horn one marketing strategy for every channel you use.
Another strategy includes creating an event such as a mega or super open house with food, fun, and an atmosphere that makes the place seem inviting and entertaining.
10. Be Flexible With Showing Times
You’ve set a timeline, created a reasonable price-to-sell model, did a deep dive into various marketing ideas, and now it’s the big reveal!
Setting showtimes and being flexible with viewings are great ways to enhance the chances of driving a better price and making a sale faster. Real estate buyers are like most consumers. They want it when they want it, and being accommodating is the best way to get a potential buyer to view and possibly make an offer on your listing.
A great tip is to get agent feedback from every showing. Not all agents will reach out to you after they show a client. By taking a proactive approach and reaching out to every single agent that offers your property, you can pivot your marketing approach and tweak little details on your marketing materials to highlight those positive features they mention.
Selling a home fast can leave a lot of money on the table. But by taking a strategic approach to showcasing the property, pricing it to drive demand and create competition, and being creative in your marketing efforts, you can be assured of getting the best price for the home fast.
