How To Win Home Buyers Hearts Online

Studies show that the longer a home sits on the market, the lower the offer will be when the seller finally receives one. That is why you need to do everything you can to make buyers fall in love with your home once it's listed. You may feel your home will sell itself, but that can be a costly presumption if you're wrong. You must be competitive if other houses are for sale in your area. The best thing to do is to form a clear action plan and execute each step to ensure nothing gets overlooked.

This article will give you a "big picture" overview of the most critical steps to get buyers to love your house before seeing it in person. Home buyers are often highly emotional shoppers. It's essential to get their attention right from the beginning. If a buyer falls in love with your house before seeing it in person, they are much more likely to attach to it emotionally when they view it in person. Emotions cause buyers to feel a sense of urgency and excitement, encouraging them to submit an excellent offer to increase their chances of accepting it.

Your goal as a home seller should be to win as many buyers' hearts as possible to solicit the highest offers possible. This will be determined by your ability to get your home ready and your Realtor's ability to market the property. If you and your Realtor perform at your best, your home will sell faster and for higher dollars than the other homes in your neighborhood.

Here are four steps to win home buyers' hearts before they ever see your house in person.

Properly "Restore" Your Home

After years of walking through houses with buyers, it's easy to know what buyers want and don't want. In Colorado Springs, the #1 thing I see keeping many houses from selling is the home's overall condition. Getting a home ready to sell is a lot of work, and some people will try to cut corners.

Maybe your dog chewed some of the edges of the carpet, and you don't want to fix it, so you put a rug over it. Perhaps you have lived in the house for 20 years and don't realize that your picture-covered walls make it hard to tell what color the paint is. From dingy light switches and plate covers to well-loved flooring, living in a home tends to take a toll on the condition. You may not notice it, but a home buyer will.

For whatever reason, some sellers try to avoid the work of "restoring" a home back to its original condition. It may be the expense or the time needed to do it properly. The bottom line is that this HAS to be done to sell for top dollar. This is one of your most essential roles in selling your house. If you want buyers to love your home, it will have to be in better condition than the other homes on the market. Otherwise, your home is being used to sell other listings in better shape.

Evaluating the repairs and restoration before the listing can be complicated if your house is enormous and you've lived there for many years. This is something that your Realtor can coach you through. If you can get the interior and exterior of your home in excellent show condition, your going to win buyers' hearts when they find your home online.

Minimize Your Presence in the Home

Minimizing your presence in the home is essential to maximize interest online. Buyers have a hard time imagining themselves in a home if it is covered in someone else's stuff. To do this, you must act as though the house is no longer yours and pretend that you are temporarily staying there to take care of it for the next buyer. This is an efficient mindset.

Remove all your pictures from the walls and use minimal decorative items throughout the house. If buyers can't tell whether or not you live there, you've done your job well. A home for sale does not usually need as much furniture as a house you are living in. Consider renting a storage unit and moving as much as possible to make your home appear more prominent. Get rid of stuffed bookshelves, unnecessary furniture, and anything that can be stored until after closing. This will help your house look clean and ready for a new owner.

This step is harder for some people than others. If you are a natural minimalist, your house will be easier to prepare. If you are a borderline hoarder (joke) and have stuff everywhere, I would suggest enlisting the help of some friends to get your home ready. They will help you save time by deciding what gets packed and what stays. Getting all your personal belongings off the bookshelves, walls, and exposed areas will dramatically help buyers emotionally attach to your home. They'll fall in love with it even before seeing it in person.

Study & Beat The Competition Online

There is no better way to know how well your home will do than to study the local market. Pretend you are a buyer looking for a home in your house's price range, size, and area. Then go online and find 3 to 5 homes you think are the best. View them in person with your Realtor if you can. This will give you a great idea of your competition and help you determine the best price and condition for your home to compete properly.

Notice how much of a difference each $10,000 increment makes in the amenities of your competition. The higher your price, the harder your home will be to sell. Study your competition and determine what price range would be competitive and fair. Also, notice if your competitor offers standard upgrades or amenities that your home does not, then adjust by adding those amenities/upgrades or dropping the price to compete better. This is one of the most important steps to marketing your home to get buyers to love it. Pricing it correctly, in the beginning is crucial.

The hardest part of evaluating your competition is being honest with your situation. Are you objective enough to determine whether your house is better or worse than your competition? Chances are more likely that you are not, which makes it wise to ask your real estate agent (or an objective 3rd party) to help you be honest with your situation. It's easy to lean towards whatever will help justify selling for the highest price.

Pricing a home too high is the most common mistake home sellers make. Too often, sellers will hire a Listing Agent simply because they assure the sellers they can get an unrealistic amount for their home. Be honest and objective when studying your competition. You'll end up causing buyers to fall in love with your listing because it outshines the competition in your proper price range!

Market the Unique Features

When you study your competition and pretend to be a buyer looking in your home's price range, what features does your home have that others do not? These are very important to point out because they make your home unique. These features may often not be noticeable in the pictures or get lost in the property description. These days, it takes more than a clever property description and average photos to sell a home. I highly recommend using video marketing to sell your home. With video, you can be sure to display everything that you want to be conveyed about your home. Here's an example:

Notice how this video gives you many details about the home's fireplace, construction, and features you would never get from the property description text. This is a powerful way to sell your home and make buyers fall in love before they ever see it.

Once you have "restored" your home to show condition and have studied the market to determine a firm sales price & upgrades, you'll need to hire a Realtor who is a pro with marketing. The worst thing you can do is hire a sub-par Realtor who is a friend or relative out of obligation and have them destroy your hard work with nasty photos and old-school marketing.

Spend some time researching and finding a Realtor who markets with video well. It can be the #1 thing to help your home sell for top dollar in the least amount of time. How your home is presented online will make or break your whole home sale. I see new weekly listings of beautiful homes with terrible pictures, no videos, old-school virtual tours, and barely any marketing efforts.