5 Tips for Selling Your Home in 28 Days

Do you ever wonder why some homes sell in a matter of days while others are listed on the market for months?

It’s NOT by chance that this happens.  There are certain things you can do to sell your home fast.

If you follow my 5 tips for selling your home, I can’t guarantee your house will sell in 28 days but I CAN promise you’ll have a better shot than 95% of home sellers out there!

1)  It’s all About the Price

You need to price your house correctly.  This is one of the tips for selling your home that you can’t ignore.  Figure out what it’s worth in the current real estate market; NOT what it was worth 2-3 years ago.

The worst mistake you can make is overpricing your home. It’ll sit listed on the market for months on end and you’ll never sell your home that way.

If you’re listing your home with a real estate agent or Realtor, rely on them to set the listing price for you.  They should be experts in your local real estate market and know how quickly other similar homes have sold.

If you’re selling your home on your own, you need to go a real estate website like shilohstreet.com and search only the ‘sold homes’ within about a 1 mile radius around your home.  Search for homes similar to yours in size, style and condition.  Figure out the ‘price per sq. ft’ of the sold homes and use that number to determine the listing price range for your home.

In either case, a real estate trick that can work wonders is to set your listing price just below the fair market value of your home.  I know it seems like the exact wrong thing to do but by listing your home just 1-3% below market value, it can attract a TON of home buyers and possibly create a bidding war, which may get you a selling price above the market value.  It’s scary but try it!

2)  De-Clutter ‘til the Cows Come Home

Home buyers want to walk in your home and imagine themselves living there.  If they can’t do that, you have no chance of selling your home to them. To do this, you need to de-clutter, de-stink and de-personalize like never before.

Take down all your photos and personal pictures. A home buyer can’t see themselves living in your home if your wedding photos and grand kids are all over the walls.  It’s emotionally hard to do but it’s the reality of selling your home successfully.

Pack up all of your junk, or ‘belongings’ if you don’t have any junk.   If you need to rent a storage unit, do it.  The more space you can make in your house, the more inviting and appealing it’ll be to a prospective home buyer.

Your goal is to make your home look like one of those home builder’s model homes because that’s what attracts home buyers.

One of the tips for selling your home you’ve probably heard of is staging your home.  But you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a home staging professional.

Just rearrange your existing furniture to define the space in each room and make it as appealing and spacious as you can.  If you need to rent or borrow some newer furnishings, please do so!  That raggedy, green, 20-year old recliner isn’t going to help you.

Adding a few decorations like flowers on the coffee table and a fake fruit bowl in the kitchen next to a bottle of wine will actually work.  Walk through one of those model homes and copy what they’ve done.  It may seem cheesy but it works…. trust me!

3)  NOT all Listing Photos are the Same

What do you think is the #1 reason buyers want to see certain homes and not others when they are searching homes online?  That’s right; the photos!

This is where you’ll want to spend a couple bucks.  Don’t grab your cheap digital camera and snap a couple photos of each room at 7pm when the sun is going down.

Pay a professional photographer a few bucks to take professional photos because this is what home buyers will see when they’re searching for homes online.  If the listing photo of your bathroom looks dingy with your underwear dangling off the counter (yes, I’ve seen it), home buyers will skip your house.

It’s just like going out to eat.  If the menu had a picture of the Chicken Marsala on a garbage can lid, you’d never order it, right?

But if that same dish was on a fancy plate with garnishments and just the right lighting, you’d order it in a heartbeat.  It’s all about presentation and selling a house is no different.

Check out the before and after photo examples at Vicaso.com.  If this company serves your area, use them for your listing photos.  Be sure to read their photography tips for selling your home too.  If Vicaso.com doesn’t serve your local real estate market, find a local photographer that can work the same photographic magic.

4)  Don’t Ignore the MLS

If you’re selling your home with a real estate agent, they’ll already be listing your home in the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS).  If you’re selling your home ‘for sale by owner’, you’ll want to use the MLS service provided by a company like ForSaleByOwner.com.

The reason you want your home listed in your local MLS is because home buyers are all searching online today.  When they search homes on a real estate website, they’re listings from the MLS.  If your home isn’t listed there, you’re missing countless opportunities to sell your house.

If you ignore listing your home in the MLS, you’re forced to rely on those old school tips for selling your home like sticking a sign in the yard and an ad in the newspaper, both of which have slim chances of getting your home sold.

5)  Should You Hold an Open House?

Here’s a shocker for you: open houses won’t sell your home.  Yes, a real estate broker just told you that.

Well, that’s not 100% true.  About 1-3% of homes are sold through an open house so it’s not impossible but the odds are not nearly as good as most home sellers think.

I know it’s strange to have a real estate broker tell you this but open houses are mainly used to get real estate agents business; not to sell your home.  Agents and Realtors know that they will get clients by holding an open house at your home, which is one of the reasons why they do it.

But go ahead and let your Realtor hold an open house for you; just don’t get your hopes up that it will sell your home.  Look at it as another way for home buyers to view your home and talk about it to their friends.  Who knows, you may be that 1-3% who sell your house from it!

As for showing your home during the week, my suggestion is to be as accommodating as possible when home buyers want to see it.  When buyers want to see a home for sale, they want to see it right that very second.  And with so many homes on the real estate market today, you don’t want to give them a reason to skip your house.

If you follow these 5 tips for selling your home, I promise you’ll be leaps ahead of all your competition.  Home buyers will want to see your house before all the others and you’ll get your home sold quicker than the sellers who have no clue what they’re doing.