Author: Heather Connor, Realtor
Have you decided that it’s time to sell your home or investment in Crested Butte?
Do you want to be sure to do everything possible to achieve top dollar? Well, I whittled the list down to my top 5 favorites that will maximize the net equity gain on the sale of your place.
Psst. . . Number 5 below may surprise you. Happy reading and always reach out with any questions.
1. Pick a Full-time Agent to Represent You
Isn’t it interesting that when something is on-trend, everyone jumps on ship? And when things become off-trend or challenging, they jump ship. This is important as you want an agent that knows more than just how to write a contract. Any contracts 101 class will teach them that. You want someone who deeply understands the market, knows how far you can push your listing price – yet still receive offers. Someone who takes great care and pride in being your advisor. Don’t forget, hiring a friend as a favor could cost you tens of thousands of dollars over hiring a full-time professional.
2. Impressions Matter
This should be fairly obvious, but let’s go a little deeper into this one. Since I believe we all know that how your home represents itself on-line and in-person will dictate buyer interest, let’s dive further into information that will actually help you as the homeowner.
a. Photographs Really, Really Matter. You know this and you spend the day getting the home cleaned immaculately, but leave a tornado of clutter behind you. In this scenario, a little dust may not show up or affect the image quality, but clutter will. When you or someone on your behalf is prepping the home, clutter and staging should be of top priority and then be sure to clean up and dust after. If you can only do one, remove the clutter.
b. Clean and Maintain Outstanding Items: For showings, you want to deep-clean, and have someone perform the honey-do maintenance list. Both of these will impact your open house and client showings. Anything that will degrade the value of your home in a potential buyer’s eyes should be taken care of. Now, open houses and showings are a little more dimensional than photographs. People walk through and experience your home. When they do this, they are using more faculties beyond just sight. They are seeing, feeling and smelling the home. It all ends up leaving an overall and blended impression – and you want it to be positive. Ideally it evokes an emotion of them seeing themselves in the home or creating a desire for the lifestyle it evokes.
c. Confirm expectations with your agent. Once you’ve performed all this work, you probably want to be sure that your agent isn’t sitting at an open house with the lights off, blinds closed and mindlessly texting on their phone as people walk through. Personally, I’m a fan of all blinds open, lights on, some music in the background and possibly some food or candles (if the homeowners allow it) to set a proper home buying experience. While these all seem very basic, you would be surprised at how often the basics are not covered.
3. Strike While the Iron is Hot
What do I mean by this? Well, we all want top dollar, we all want it for minimal effort and we all want it to coincide within a time that is really, really convenient for us. Then life happens, we can’t make everything perfect, and we push it off. Then as you continue to push it off. . . the market shifts. While there are certain scenarios where this makes sense, sometimes I find that more often than not, we miss out on opportunities because we are waiting for everything to be perfect. If your trusted real estate advisor is saying that now is the time, let them help you gather up the team of contractors, cleaners, stagers, and photographers to make your home shine- while you continue on with your busy life. So while I stated that impressions matter, you can hire others to help you make this happen. P.S. business coaching 101 is “who” not “how”. Allow others to pitch in and get those chores done on your behalf.
4. Be Prepared for Inconvenience
What does this have to do with getting top dollar for your home? Well, your perfect buyer that has been looking for their perfect property may decide yours is it. Unfortunately, they are only in-town for one more night, they happened to have skied past it on their second-to-last night in town and their only time to view is at a REALLY inconvenient time for you. Be prepared as buyers in a resort community are usually on vacation and the purchase tends to be more emotional than logical. This can mean erratic and often-times last-minute showing requests. Great for you if they become emotionally connected to your home, however, not great if you prefer a lot of lead time on showings.
5. Review contracts carefully
You probably weren’t expecting this one. In the end, everything from the pre-launch, to the showings to the contracts ultimately culminates into the sale of your home. It’s important to remember that the highest contract price may not actually be the one that allows you to net the most equity. Pay attention to important aspects such as who pays for what, try to pre-determine and set an expectation for credits/negotiation when it comes to the inspection contingency. Make sure you pick a strong contract so you don’t put yourself in a high likelihood of falling out of contract, and then going back on the market. Often, if done right, your first impression is your best chance of getting your best offer.
So I’m curious how this list translated for you guys. I wanted to offer advice on something beyond the traditional list of painting and cleaning. Something that was more of a holistic approach to what your experience may feel like and how it all works congruently to get you top dollar for your home.
P.S. Want to know a hack on how to create your honey-do list and also greatly minimize costly inspection objections later? Ask me for the link. . .
