Money For Grabs

As easy as it was to sell a home just four years ago, it is now brutally difficult. This is the natural back and forth of the real estate market, but to a bit of an extreme. If you are having problems selling in this market, is there anything you can do?

When a real estate market goes cold, it can seem like there are no homes being sold at all. This is incorrect. There is just a lot of competition for the attention of a small pool of buyers. To get their attention, you need to do some unique things.

The first step is to play up your neighborhood. Location, location, location. It is the first rule of real estate and everyone knows it. So, make sure you list the attributes of your neighborhood when putting your marketing together.

There seems to be one owner in every neighborhood. Their yard is a jungle or completely dead. You can complain, but it rarely gets anything done. The answer? Offer to have it done. You’ll make it back on the sale of your home.

Location may be rule one in real estate, but pricing is rule one in life. You must constantly evalute the comparable homes in your neighborhood. Alway price your home near the bottom of the applicable prices if you want to sell quickly.

Obviously, the comparable homes in a neighborhood are not all the same. If yours is slightly better, pricing at the lower end of the listing range can be hard. Do it! Most sellers will group the homes together and not notice your fine points.

Given this, many homeowners just can’t bear to cut their price. Are their homes destined to sit on the market? Nope, but you must aggressively market the differences that make your home superior to comparable ones.

One way to do this or just move your house is to offer favorable terms to buyers. We all want someone to show up with a suitcase of cash. It probably isn’t going to happen. Offer to help with the financing by offering a second mortgage. It can make all the difference.

An obvious, but often missed, final step is to make small improvements to the property that carry big weight. Landscaping is usually cheap and can radically change the look of a property.

Besides landscaping, there are other minor tasks that can have a big impact. Clean your driveway and organize the garage. Cut back plants in front of windows to maximize lighting and views. Walk the house and just make little changes to the details.