Getting Your Home Sold in This Market – 10 Steps to Success According to Professional Home Stagers
October 19, 2008 by Lisa Heindel
Filed under Blog, For Sellers, Real Estate Talk
One of the biggest benefits of belonging to a nationwide network of real estate professionals is that my network is not limited to just other REALTORS®. It also includes title and mortgage professionals as well as some of my favorite people – home stagers.
Home stagers are the magicians that can take your house from just OK to WOW. Even though my friend Michelle Minch is located in California, her advice to home sellers holds true no matter where you live. She recently wrote an article about getting your home sold in today’s tough market and I’d like to share it with you all.
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From Michelle Minch, Moving Mountains Design Home Staging
Want to get your home sold in this difficult market? Here’s 10 steps for moving your home from "for sale" to "SOLD!". I’m here to tell you that homes are selling, some very quickly, even in this market. Most of the Los Angeles homes we stage are selling in less than 30 days, some with multiple offers. Want to know what those home sellers are doing to help their homes get sold?
Before
After
This Valencia home sold in 14 days with multiple offers after being staged by Moving Mountains Design (September 2008) Click here to read this very happy client’s testimonial.
Here are 10 steps you can take to help get your home sold, too:
- Hire the best full service REALTOR or real estate agent you can find. This is no time to be fooling around with less than full service. Do your research on the internet and by asking friends who they’ve worked with and if they had a good experience. Interview at least 3 REALTORS or real estate agents. Don’t hire your best friend, their cousin, your hairstylist who moonlights as a real estate agent, unless you are certain that they know what they are doing and can back up their claims. You are selling what for many is their most valuable asset. Don’t be embarrassed into letting your home sit unsold because you didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.
- Don’t negotiate the sales commission. A really good, experienced REALTOR or real estate agent will tell probably tell you "no" anyway. Marketing and selling real estate properly is an expensive proposition. All the brochures, flyers, virtual tours, professional photographers, etc. cost money. If you negotiate a lower commission, you are preventing your listing agent from pulling out the "big guns" to get your home sold as quickly as possible. Don’t hamstring the sale of your home by limiting the amount of money your listing agent has available for marketing. Also, with the abundant inventory on the market right now, buyer’s agents are going to show the homes that pay full commissions first.
- Listen to your Listing Agent regarding pricing.They know what they are doing (assuming your followed step 1). They are on the MLS every day and know what homes are selling for and how quickly they sold. They talk to other REALTORS and real estate agents daily. It doesn’t matter how much your dry cleaner thinks you should list your home for. It doesn’t matter how much profit (or how little loss) you would like to walk away with. All that matters is how much someone will be willing to pay for your house. A good REALTOR or real estate agent will be able to tell you how much you should list your home for to get it sold quickly.
- Hire a professional building inspector for a pre-sale inspection. You can address any issues that might sink a sale during escrow, or prevent someone from making an offer in the first place. Use the information to get your home into tip-top shape.
- Make any needed repairs. Home buyers want a home that is truly move-in ready. They don’t want an allowance for new carpet or a new roof. They want a house that already has new carpet and a new roof so they can move in right away.
- Clean your house from top to bottom. Clean it until it is cleaner than it has ever been before. If you don’t have the time or energy, hire a cleaning service. Make sure your house sparkles and smells clean every day it is on the market. If there is an issue you can’t address by cleaning, then replace it. For instance, if the linoleum in your kitchen has a big burn mark from the hot skillet you dropped, replace the linoleum.
- Hire a professional home stager. Again, do your research on the Internet and with your listing agent. Make sure you hire an experienced professional and not a hobbyist or (again) your sister-in-law, unless she is a pro with experience and knowledge of your market. Ask to see the stager’s portfolio (or view it on-line) and make sure all the photos are of their recent work. If you are a do-it-yourself type, at the very least, hire a professional home stager to do a comprehensive consultation so you know exactly what needs to be done. Most home stagers will also help you choose paint colors and carpet as well.
- Listen to the home stager regarding the condition of your home and what needs to be done tp make it appealing to the greatest number of buyers. If they tell you your favorite floral pattern wallpaper has to go, do it. A home stager’s expertise is preparing homes to look their best so it is appealing to the greatest number of buyers and they have done it successfully for numerous home sellers (assuming you followed Step 7). Remember, they are looking at your home through "buyer’s eyes".
- Have your home photographed by a professional photographer. Many REALTORs and real estate agents include this as part of their marketing package. Photos taken by a point and shoot camera are not going to show your home at its best. 80% of home buyers are looking at homes on the Internet before going out to see homes they are interested in. If your home doesn’t look great in the photos, then most buyers will pass you by.
- Follow all of the above steps before you put your home on the market.Clean it up, fix it up, have it professionally staged and then photographed. Once you have great photos that really showcase your home, give your REALTOR the go-ahead to post them on the MLS. Make sure they post the maximum number of photos allowed. The more photos you have showcasing your home on the MLS, the greater your chances of selling it. If you rush the process, then you will not be putting your home’s best face forward from day one. Staging or adding better pictures after your home has been on the market, even for a few days, won’t get back potential buyers who dismissed your home when they saw few pictures, bad pictures, vacant rooms or an unstaged mess.
Read The Benefits of Staging a Home
Read How to Choose the Right Home Stager
Remember: When you put your home on the market, you are entering it in a beauty contest. The best looking homes in the best condition sell first. It’s a no-brainer.
*Getting Your Home Sold In This Market – 10 Steps To Success* copyright 2008 Michelle Minch and Moving Mountains Design. All rights reserved.
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Please visit our Los Angeles home staging web site for more information about how we can help you get you home sold quickly and for the best price. You can reach Michelle Minch, owner of Moving Mountains Design, directly at (626)441-8975 or via email, Michelle@MovingMountainsDesign.com . Don’t settle for second best when selling your Los Angeles area home. Choose Moving Mountains Design Home Staging, the Los Angeles staging company with the track record of rapid sales and the referrals from many happy clients to back up our claims. Featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Sunset Magazine and numerous other national and international publications, we don’t sell homes, but we know what makes homes sell!
Thank you Michelle for allowing me to reprint this article here!
Lisa: You are most welcome. I should be thanking you for your tireless efforts to educate home sellers on how to get their homes sold quickly and for the best price. Anyone selling a home in the West Bank who doesn’t call you is missing out on a great opportunity to get their home sold fast.
Lisa:
Great information! You really are a great person and one heck of a Realtor(r).
As of 10-21-08…With the economy forcing so many realtors to work harder and smarter, I’m not sure that #2…DON’T NEGOTIATE THE SALES COMMISSION…as one of the 10 the best steps to take to sell a home 4TH QUARTER ‘08 is the win-win-win way to go in order to keep business flowing your way if you are trying to REGULARLY be the realtor on a contract representing the buyer or seller. Think about that.
The internet allows buyers and sellers to get competitive information and if other realtors can provide the services a savvy seller or buyer needs, then would it not make more financial sense to go with a realtor who IS flexible on their fee?
Afterall, don’t you want the seller to sell at a price based on the appraisal that will move the property quickly and not allow the property to age and become “Tainted meat?” The going rate for closed deals today is lower so you may want to review the idea for what commission should be charged to reflect the times we are all facing. I’ll bet the seller would like to get the price she would have gotten had the economy not taken a tumble…but it did…and she won’t get that price…and you may have to share that “lower price” burden until things get better. And they will get better…for us all.
You talked about what Really Good Experienced Realtors would do. >>>How you do anything is how you do everything<<< and Really Good Experienced Realtors have already figured out a way to provide superior service in tough times because they have assumed the “customer for life” stance long before they are faced with whether to lower their fee in order to meet current market demands….that is part of what makes them Really Good and also shows their Experience in being able to shine in the midst of dealing with all kinds of market conditions.
Marilyn Pulliam is owner of YourWealthDepot.com and e-Moderator for http://www.ilforeclosuresupport.com families in foreclosure get support/tips + ways to earn $ i.e. Millionaire Mind Intensive 3-day Seminar.
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Marilyn,
I have to respectfully disagree with you…pricing the home properly to avoid it becoming “tainted” has nothing to do with the commission that has been negotiated between the seller and the listing agent. It has to do with knowing the market intimately and being able to pinpoint where the buyers are looking and in what price range. Not every home can sell right away, but there ARE things you can do to improve your odds of a successful sale – staging, pricing and repairs being among them. None of which has a single thing to do with the commission being charged by the listing agent (which is based on a percentage, not a set dollar amount)
I have the utmost sympathy for families that are facing losing their homes, but since Louisiana is ranked 48th in the U.S. in the number of foreclosures, they are not putting the same downward pressure on prices in my region that has been seen in other parts of the country. People who have been in their homes for more 3 or 4 years will more than likely still make a profit or at least break even on their sale. I have talked to only a handful of sellers who couldn’t afford to hire a REALTOR.
Really good, experienced REALTORS know how to price and prepare a home for sale in any market, but it is ultimately up to the sellers to decide if they are willing to take our professional advice.
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