As we have already discussed, the first secret to selling your home fast is to recognize the fact that selling a home fast is NOT the same as a traditional home sale. A fast home sale requires that you do things differently from a ’standard’ home seller.
The need to do things differently are even greater when you sell own house. Fortunately, it is often much easier to deviate from the ’standard’ home selling practices when you sell your house on your own because you aren’t constrained by the traditional practices and beliefs of a typical real estate agent.
So, if you need to sell home, what must you do differently when you want to sell your own house and sell it fast?
Step #1: Prepare YOURSELF – both inside and out – to effectively market and proactively sell your house. This means:
· Disconnect yourself from any emotions or hesitations you may have about selling the house.
Since you are, in effect, your own real estate agent, you must view the sale of this property strictly as a business transaction. You are only looking for a financially qualified buyer. The size of their family, their hobbies or habits, their personal hygiene, and their personality – attractive or not – are completely unimportant. Remember, the first best buyer who you can reach a satisfactory agreement with is exactly who you are looking for!
· Put yourself in the role of an ‘always available’ salesperson.
You will achieve the best results when you make yourself available to potential buyers at all times. This means you have to be easily reachable by phone, fax, or e-mail. You must also make yourself available in person as often as possible. Since you are the primary sales person for your home, you must also be ultra responsive to any messages you receive by phone, fax, or e-mail. Especially in today’s very competitive buyer’s market, if you don’t respond quickly, politely, and accurately to any and all potential buyers, those buyers will lose interest very quickly and move on to a different property.
· Present yourself professionally
Again, as the primary representative for your property, you should always check (a) your state of mind, and (b) the mirror before meeting with a potential buyer. Like it or not, people are making judgments about us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If your house makes a great impression, but you do not, it can dramatically affect the way a buyer deals with you throughout the course of the negotiation, inspection, and closing phases of the sale. Take a few minutes to put yourself in a positive and encouraging frame of mind before meeting with a buyer. Take an additional few minutes to check your clothing and appearance as well. People do business with people, so you want to present yourself cleanly and professionally whenever you interact with potential buyers.
· Assemble your team
If you want the sale of your home to go smoothly from start to finish, you must line up a few key players ahead of time. At a bare minimum you need to be ready with a well qualified real estate attorney. Now the fact is you may not need anyone other than your own attorney on your team to complete the transaction, but to effectively market your property and provide the best answers to potential buyers, it is best to have a home inspector, an appraiser, and a good mortgage broker available to you as well. Why you ask? Well, independent buyers coming in from out of town may not know anyone in the area and they may ask you for recommendations. To sell your own house fast you must have these resources available quickly in the event you need them. The seller who has the names and numbers of well qualified professionals readily available is the seller who will sell their house fast and close their transaction quickly!
In our next article, we’ll talk about Step #2: Prepare YOUR PROPERTY!