We all realize by now that the real estate market is slowing due to a reduced buyer pool, caused in part by the increase in mortgage interest rates.
Here’s some advice to sellers who don’t want their home to sit unsold on the market.
1) Reconsider buying your replacement home first, expecting to sell your home immediately. That strategy was based on the difficulty in finding a replacement home. Now you can sell first, have a 45- to 60-day close and reasonably expect to find your replacement home before you have to surrender your current one.
2) Don’t price your home based entirely on recent comparable sales, but price it slightly lower. Buyers know the market is softening and will be looking for a good deal.
3) With an increased inventory of listings, it’s more important than ever to stage your home and improve its curb appeal as well as its interior appeal.
4) Listen to the market. If you get few showings and no offers in the first week, don’t wait to lower the price.
5) Magazine-quality pix and video are more important now to make your home stand out. Hire an agent who will order professional HDR still photos, shoot a narrated video tour and drone video, and market your home the way Golden Real Estate does.
When interviewing a listing agent, ask him or her to bring their Matrix productivity print-out instead of trusting their verbal description of their level of success with prior listings.