Mike Batty presents a Special Report.

“7 Steps To Selling Your Home in Today’s Market”

   “Your home will sell easily and quickly

Simply by following these 7 steps to

package and position your home

 into an irresistible offer!”

     Selling your home is likely to be one of the largest financial transactions you will ever make. The internet makes it all seem so deceptively easy, but what you don’t know can cost you thousands of dollars!! You may only sell 1 or 2 homes in your entire lifetime, don’t spend years regretting a big mistake … here are some tips on what you need to know before you sell.

The key is to approach it like a seasoned Professional

#1  Know your Product

#2  Know your Customer

#3  Know your Competition

#4  Plan your Marketing and Sales campaign

#5  Present the Product

#6  Make the Sale

#7  Close the deal

#1 Know your Product

You must make the important mental and emotional shift to realize that as soon as you decide to sell, your house stops being your home and your house is a commodity to be marketed and sold to the highest bidder.

You may want to get clear in your mind why you are selling. Check out my other report Why Sell?  if you have any doubts.

It doesn’t matter what you paid for it, or that you raised your family in this house.  It doesn’t matter how much cash you want to have in your hand at the close of the deal.

It only matters what a buyer is willing to pay in the current market.

You must know the market value of the house.

The true market value of the house, the commodity you are selling is based on current market information.

• Based on what other similar homes have SOLD for in the town and even better, in your neighborhood.

• You have to compare with homes of the same style, numbers of beds and baths, similar lots, similar age, within the last 3 to 6 months!!

You can often find listings of recent sales in your local newspaper, www.Zillow.com and other on-line resources can provide estimates of value also. A final benchmark can be what your property’s tax assessment is. Typically assessors target 95% of market value. The challenge with this today is that many markets are 20% below where they were when they were last assessed.

Knowing your product means knowing the costs.

1)  Once you know the sales price that you can expect then you need to calculate how much money you can expect to have in your pocket after the sale. You need to subtract from the sales price – mortgage balance, commissions paid, legal fees ( title, recording, etc..),state property taxes, cost of any repairs you need to make and any liens on the property.

2)  Once you know how much you will have after the sale then you will know what you can afford to spend on marketing. More on that in #4.

3)   Finally you will know how much you will have left to buy your next home.

Short Sales and Foreclosures

Unfortunately today, many sellers who have to move are finding that the current value of their home is less than what they paid, and in some cases less than what they owe the bank! Worse some have found that they are unable to meet the mortgage payments and are facing foreclosure on a house that is worth less than what they owe.

#2  Know your customer

• Your customer is a buyer who has enough of a down payment and has pre-qualified with a lender to borrow the rest of the money to buy your house. You cannot legally discriminate for any other reason than this.
• 97% of all buyers have a buyer’s Real Estate Agent working for them.
• Of the remaining 3% of buyers out there, only 50% will actually qualify financially to be able to buy your home. So even if they submit an offer only 1.5% will be able to close the deal, costing you time and money.

• Almost 100% of all “get rich quick” real estate courses tell their students to call For Sale By Owner ( FSBO’s) and make lowball or “creative” offers. You will have to screen all of these calls.
• Almost all of these people cannot qualify to purchase your home with a standard bank loan.
•  Some of these offers may sound good to you after your house has been on the market for 250 days, but you will likely regret accepting such a deal.

#3  Know your competition

Part of any successful marketing effort is to know what the competition is doing. You need to know what you are competing against.

You are competing with every other house for sale in your town, and possibly several adjacent towns.  98% of homes are sold by real estate agents. Going it alone puts you in the 2% minority.

Homes marketed by a professional agent/brokerage will:

• Be priced precisely by a professional for best effect in the market. The agent will have seen what similar homes have sold for recently in the local market and be able to justify the price.
• Be marketed through networking and the MLS to the most critical group – the other realtors who are working with the 97% of the buyers.
• Have internet exposure to the major sites, provide an individual website and have a wealth of marketing information available to provide to buyers, school information, crime statistics and even local sports and recreational activities for the family to put your home in the most favorable light.
• Be available to show the house through most days, evenings and weekends.
• Be supported with a pre-screened team of support personnel and the resources to be comfortable and confident throughout the process.
• Have a team to shepherd the deal to closing. In many instances the majority of the work occurs after the offer has been accepted.

#4  Plan your marketing and sales campaign

You have the same challenge as a company putting a 20 second Ad on the SuperBowl.

You only have people’s attention for 20 seconds.

5 seconds on the internet page and 15 seconds when they first walk through the door.

It won’t cost you as many dollars as for a Superbowl spot, but there will be marketing and sales costs. Commissions paid to agents, costs for ads, signs, repairs and cosmetics, even maintenance while you are selling.

Setting your price:

You went through step #1, you know how much the house is worth so what now?

TIME is MONEY, and MONEY is TIME

When selling often time is money, you may be commuting a long distance, having to rent a place to stay, or the like. As a result each month that goes by, you pay an extra mortgage payment, you pay another month of taxes, you pay the maintenance, so time on the market costs you money and stress. The good news is that unlike the rest of life, money can buy you time. The lower the price, the faster you will sell.

The reverse is less true.

•  If you price it too high it may be on the market for months or may not sell at all.
• Additionally the pain of being on best behavior and on notice for showings for months is hard to gauge, and often properties that are on the market for a long time come to be viewed as problem properties and get ignored by agents and buyers alike.

Advertizing:

• Open houses don’t sell houses very often – don’t waste the time one more than one or two.
• Neither do newspaper ads  - don’t waste the money.
• A sign out front helps. Be prepared for drop-ins and midnight calls.
• Market to local agents
•  Local “broker tours” invite agents mid-week to view new listings, your home needs to have at least one broker tour.

• Market on the internet
•  Today more than 80% of home purchases start with an on-line view. It is also a fact that the average person spends less than 5 seconds on 99% of the websites they visit. You have to focus on trying to grab that 5 seconds.
•  You Must have your home listed on MLS and Realtor.com
• It is good to have  - Craigslist, dedicated site, virtual tour
•  There are hundreds of ‘do-it-yourself’ home sale sites that can also be used to get some exposure.

Your Sales team: Whether you know it or not you have one…

     Buyers agents, they are not the enemy!

• 97% of your potential customers are working with them. You need to plan to provide some compensation to the buyer’s agent in order to have him show your home. Typically 2-3% of the selling price goes to the buyer’s agent.
• If the agent can’t get paid then he will not show your house.
• In today’s slow markets, you can not afford to have only 3% of buyers even see your house. So plan on giving 3% to the buyer’s agent, to motivate him to sell your house.
  

But a word of caution here, even though you are paying her, the buyer’s agent is a trained professional negotiator working for the financial interest of the buyer.

• She will do everything she can to assemble a list of buying objections to negotiate your price down for her buyers.
• She has access to all of the information in the MLS as well as a network of other agents to strengthen her buyer’s position.
• If you are selling it yourself the ‘other’ 3% that would have gone to your listing agent will now be on the table for negotiation.

Your agent. If you have a listing agent he or she should be actively looking for a buyer for your home. He has a double incentive to sell!!

Your friends and neighbors. Often someone’s friends or relatives want to live close to them. Ask your friends and neighbors if they know anyone who wants to move into your house!!

#5  Present the Product

This is your last 15 seconds, use it well.

People decide whether they like a house within 15 seconds of walking through the door. Sometimes they don’t even get to the door!!

How Much Should you Spend?

Spend as little money as possible. There is a big difference between making minor and inexpensive "polishes" and "touch-ups" to your house, such as putting new knobs on cabinets and a fresh coat of neutral paint in the living room, and doing extensive and costly renovations, like installing a new kitchen or a new roof.

Maximizing Exterior and Curb Appeal

Before putting your house on the market, take as much time as necessary (and as little money as possible) to maximize its exterior and interior appeal. Tips to enhance your home’s exterior and curb appeal:

· Keep the lawn edged, cut and watered regularly. Trim hedges, weed lawns and flowerbeds, and prune trees regularly. 

· Inspect doors and windows for peeling paint. Repair and repaint loose siding and caulking.

· Clean and align gutters. 

· Repair and replace loose or damaged roof shingles.

· Keep walks neatly cleared of snow and ice. 

· Keep your garage door closed. 

· Apply a fresh coat of paint to the front door.

Preparing Your Home’s Interior

Give every room in the house a thorough cleaning. This alone will make your house appear bigger and brighter.

Staging

Much has been made recently on this topic, and there is something to be said for it.Making the most of a space is key, and showing people how they can use the house is important.

• The main focus in all cases is to remove clutter. Pre-pack whatever you can and store it away from the house. PODS and other similar companies make this easy.
• The second focus after that is to go neutral on colors. Whites, beiges and light yellows that will match with most things are preferred.
• If you have a bright GREEN living room you need to paint it.
• If you want to do more go out and spend $20 on the “IDIOTS” Guide to Staging your home to Sell. Read up on it and apply the easy things to get most of the benefit.

If you want a professional view there are many companies and consultants who offer services from simple advice all the way to renovations.

#6  Make the Sale

So you have attracted a buyer, he has made an offer. Do you take the money and run? Do you negotiate? If you counter what will happen? What other conditions are there on the offer?

• Make sure that you disclose everything that you should so you don’t get sued. Water in the basement, lead paint, oil tank, asbestos, depleted uranium shells in the back yard. Whatever you know that might be an issue should be disclosed to the buyer before the sale. I know that this may lower the price but the cost of a lawsuit afterwards will be far more.

Pre-approval letter. Be certain that the offer includes a copy of a letter from a lender pre-approving the buyers for a sufficient mortgage to purchase the house. Without such a guarantee you should not remove the house from the market, or put yourself in the position of not being able to accept another offer. You can accept the offer but specify that it is not binding until mortgage approval is obtained by the buyers. This way if they cannot get the loan you have not lost time.

Conditions? The offer has a bunch of conditions written in. Many of these are normally part of a standard contract, all of them should have a time limit written down for when they will be cleared.

• Mortgage Contingency – standard, as long as the bank agrees that the property is worth enough to cover the loan.
• Property Inspection – standard to protect the buyer from unexpected repair expenses
• Pest inspection – standard in areas affected by termites and other wood eating insects
• Insurability – not in a flood plain
• Others – real estate allows for anything. People can put all sorts of things into contracts, and often do. It is up to you whether you are willing to accept them.

Negotiation? Some people are very comfortable negotiating, others aren’t. There are even cultural differences where some people expect to negotiate for everything. There are entire courses given and books written on how to negotiate so I will only say a few things here.

• If it is a full price offer, with no conditions. Sign the deal and take the money.
• If you have not had much interest, your town’s market is in the tank, and you think this may be the only offer you’ll get. Sign the deal and take the money.
• First rule of negotiation is that he who names a figure first loses. So when you are showing your home don’t say “It’s listed for $500,000 but I really only expect to get $450,000.” Your offer will come in at $450,000, or less, and you’ll be working up-hill.
• In most home sales there will only be one or two counters, not much more. So take your best shot at what you think they will pay, and what you could live with. A good rule of thumb would be to come down ¼ the difference between what they offered and what you have asked, and then see what happens.

#7  Close the deal

These days with tight financing even experienced agents are having deals fall apart. Often getting the deal to close is harder than getting an offer.

Retain a good Real Estate Attorney to assist you with the local requirements for selling in your state and town.  He will be able to assist you with the contracts and the closing documents.

Assuming that you find a buyer and agree on a price you then need to shepherd the deal to closing:

• Take care of all disclosures to avoid a lawsuit.
• Survive the professional property inspection (s) and any attempts to re-negotiate the price based upon those findings.
• In some areas there may be a Radon check.
• In most states older homes will require a lead inspection.
• When will the buyer be ready to do the P&S?
•  Where will you keep the deposit money in escrow?  Ans: Your attorney or Broker
• How do you make sure that they have their financing ready?
• When can you keep the deposit if they try to walk away? Ans: Your attorney or Broker
• When do you need the smoke detector inspection done? Within 30 days.
• How do you provide a title document at closing? Ans: Your attorney

OK, now I know how, but should I do it myself, or hire a Realtor?

     These days everyone wants to do everything themselves. The internet makes it so easy to look for homes that you like, and maybe even guesstimate values. You can download the forms and do all sorts of things for “Free” there are a dozen or more “.com’s” that will list your home for a minimal fee on the web.  The issue really comes down to whether or not it makes sense to try to do it this way….

     If you are like most folks you probably don’t have the time to research comparative values in your town and neighborhood. Selling your home isn’t as easy as it looks. Here are some other things you might want to consider.

• Do you know the market?
• Do you have up to the minute information on what the house around the corner just sold for and just how your house compares?
• Do you have the patience and time to endure a prolonged selling effort that can result from incorrect pricing and inefficient marketing?
• Do you know the legal restrictions and requirements?
• Are you a sales professional with the benefit of training and marketing expertise, and emotional detachment to best represent your house to the marketplace and command top dollar?
• Do you want to escort buyers through your home at all times of the day and evening, spend your weekends showing, and through it all keep emotionally separated from what buyers will say about your decorations and your home?

Unless you are comfortable negotiating all of these problems and pitfalls you should hire a Real Estate Professional to help you sell your home.

• Selling Real estate is the only business transaction you will find where a professional organization will compete for the privilege of spending money to market your property with no guarantee of any payment unless they are successful on your behalf. It is a deal that is hard to match!

“But a Realtor will cost me 6% of my sales price!”

Not really…..

• As we’ve seen, to market it well, you already plan to give 3% to the buyer’s agent. This 3% is built into a standard 6% listing fee, so it is really only 3% for the listing agent's fee.

• This other 3% will be negotiated away by their buyer’s agent, so if you do it yourself the 6% is spent anyway and you don’t get anything for it!

• For that 3% the listing Agent will do all of the marketing, showing, and provide services to help you properly prepare and stage your home.  Help you negotiate the right price, and then shepherd the deal to closing.

• It is actually worse than that on your own. In a recent survey it was found that owner’s selling on their own received 13% less for their homes than for similar homes sold with the aid of a real estate professional. In order to save the 6% real estate commissions those owners lost an additional 7% in profit. On a $400,000 home they lost $28,000! All for the privilege of doing all of the work themselves… Using the same math on an average $700,000 home in Lexington a good Real Estate Agent can earn you $49,000 in extra profit!

Selecting the right Agent

Selecting the right agent should be done carefully a good agent can make your sales process so much easier, but working for months with an incompatible agent can be a frustrating process.

• 75% of people use the first agent that they talk to, and never talk to anyone else.
• Promise yourself to talk to at least 3 before you decide. This will give you three price opinions and you will be more confident that you are selling at the right price and then you will be more relaxed through the whole proces

• Many agents will tell you the price they think that you want to hear in order to get you to sign the contract. You must realize that an agent lists your house for two reasons:

• To sell the house.
•  To attract buyers as customers for him to sell other people’s houses.

They assume that they will be able to convince you to lower your price later. Don’t sign the contract until you are confident that their focus is on selling your home.

If you truly want to sell your house quickly and move on with your life and dreams you need to find an agent who will tell you the true value of your house based upon what others have sold for.

• They should be able to show you the comps and that they know your local market.
• The true value may be difficult to hear if it is lower than you hoped. Especially if you have sentimental attachments, but an agent willing to tell you the truth is focused on selling your house as his first priority you don’t want your home to be overpriced and on the market for months.

You want an agent with a solid marketing plan.

1.      Multiple Listing Service, (MLS), and Internet exposure and an active approach to marketing your home.

2.      Marketing to other agents is also critical, remember they have 97% of the buyers!!  Broker tours and commission levels are key to this so consider the commission part of your marketing budget.

3.      Signs, virtual tours, open houses and other items are nice but #1 and #2 are the keys in today’s marketplace.

You need an agent with good communication skills.

• You need your listing to be well presented, good photos and good copy.
• You should receive progress updates at minimum on a weekly basis if not more often. In a mode that works for you – phone, e-mail, in person.

Finally, a reality check is that you will be working with your agent for several months through the sale and perhaps even the purchase of a new property.

• You need to be comfortable and somewhat compatible with him or her.
• It is a business relationship, but communication is an essential part of success so you have to be at ease with the person you choose to work with.

For a free home analysis, and to talk with your new agent today contact:

                 Mike Batty

      mike@GreatLexingtonHomes.com    or        <click here>