What Exactly Does It Take to Sell Your Home in The Cold Winter Months? (Part 2 of 2)

If you are thinking about putting your home on the market, you may be wondering just what is it going to take to get your house sold during winter weather here in the Mid-West? The short answer is patience and perseverance, along with very close attention to the same three things that we realtors always coach clients about- Price that is right for the location and condition, condition and staging the home so buyers will want it, and consistent, effective marketing.

What is Effective Marketing?

In our last video newsletter, we started the conversation about how to successfully sell a home no matter what the season with an in-depth look at Pricing and Condition. If you missed it, contact us, or look in the archives of our Blog. This time we will discuss Marketing. Marketing is that part that sets Realtors apart from each other. Marketing is what helps put qualified buyers even find out about your home.

Shellie Nelson and I call ourselves the Home Access Team, but not all of our sellers have an accessible home to sell. We’ve developed some intensive creative ways to market unusual homes and offer that intense approach to all of our clients. 

The key is targeted marketing combined with broad market advertising. We look at where the marketing for each home is most effective and concentrate on that. There is no one size fits all plan. We identify the probable market for the home and orient our advertising so that we hit that target, but we also advertise in a broad and general way too. Target marketing lends itself not only to marketing of accessible homes, but also to other aspects of a home, such as attractiveness to first time homebuyers, investors or others.

We recently listed a home that had a larger number of garages than the norm for the area and the garages were heated/cooled and very comfy. We sent specific flyers about the home featuring the home to contractors because we thought that contractor and other small business owners might be attracted to the garage space itself.

The Internet

The best avenue for advertising is the internet. Our brokers are always providing us statistics showing that in all age groups, most people start looking at homes on the internet before they contact a Realtor. As a realtor we use the internet not only to advertise our homes but also while searching for homes for our buyers. I can’t stress enough how important a good internet presence is.

One advantage our clients have working with Prudential Ambassador Real Estate is the expertise of the office staff to get our listings and any changes into the Multiple Listing Service really fast and a search tool people can use themselves to look at every listing in the greater Omaha area –www.paomaha.com. Being on the Prudential web site and in the Omaha area Multiple listing service also gives us access to listing on other important web sites like www.Realtor.com because the more internet exposure the better.

Prudential also has an exclusive arrangement with Yahoo! Homes are given a Yahoo! identifying number and preferential treatment in the Yahoo! real estate listings. Almost as valuable, is the search data that is generated with the Yahoo! relationship. We are able to send home sellers data that shows how many people view their home on the internet and then take the next step of getting more info. The graphs are a good way of double checking the attractiveness of our price and marketing and helps the home owner and us identify the time we need to freshen our approach.

Print Advertising

Though the internet is valuable, we don’t ignore print advertising. Research shows it isn’t as effective as the internet, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. We make sure listings are put into the real estate section of the local paper and into at least one of the local real estate papers. We also have access to a real estate listing show on TV for some clients.

One important step of our active market program is reaching out directly to other agents. Even though most people start on the internet, smart buyers realize that there is valuable information and resources they can have access to if they work with a Realtor. Realtors are also more likely to have coached their clients to prepare financially so our home sellers are better protected from un-qualified buyers if we expose them to buyers working with Realtors. We value our seller’s privacy and time. I want to make sure that they don’t waste their time with buyers who are more wishful thinkers than people really able to buy. So we reverse prospect looking for agents who are looking for homes similar to the one we are selling and we make our information about the home directly available for agents in a variety of ways.

Open Houses

Many people interviewing us prior to listing their homes, ask us about our open houses. They are influenced by TV shows that lead them to believe that open houses are effective sales tools. In reality, except for a few homes on well traveled streets and in a few rare cases where the features of the home itself will attract buyers, open houses are not that effective in our current market and actually present some risks for the home owners. Shellie and I recommend an open houses only in very rare circumstances when the benefit outweighs the risk.

A Team Approach

There are some other interesting marketing tools that Shellie and I use for clients. We will cover them with you when you chat with us about selling your home. One other thing I want to mention is that we stress a team approach with the home seller. Part of that is communication. We stay on top of results from the marketing and communicate with the home owner, keeping them posted on what is working and what we are changing to get their home in front of the buyers who will be most interested in it and able to buy it.

We hope you’ve found this segment and the previous segment helpful. Selling a home in any season is not a magic trick. A successful sale is based on the 3 basics of Price that is right for the location and condition, Condition and staging the home so buyers will want it, and consistent, effective marketing. If you have any questions, please get in touch with us. Shellie and I are looking forward to helping you sell your home.

What Exactly Does It Take to Sell Your Home in The Cold Winter Months? (Part 1 of 2)

Maybe you’ve just found a need to sell your home or maybe your home has been on the market for awhile, but here you are. You have a For-Sale sign in the yard just what is it going to take to get your house sold during winter weather here in the Mid-West?

The short answer is patience and perseverance, along with very close attention to the same three things that we realtors always coach clients about. Price that is right for the location and condition, condition and staging the home so buyers will want it , and consistent, effective marketing.

Yes, even though we are coming up on the Holidays and the weather that can get yucky and make getting around exciting here in the Midwest you still need to stick with the basics if you are trying to sell a home right now.

It isn’t a secret that showings and closings are typically fewer in the deep winter weather and over the Holidays, but there is news from the that shows there may actually be some benefit to having your home up for sale right now. The housing market was cooler in October, but experts who watch the market like those at RISMedia indicate that we can be looking for improvement because the expanded tax credit is available to a much wider range of buyers than the previous tax credit.

The initial tax credit did drive the market last year. According to the information I read in RIS Media, The original first time buyer tax credit accounted for 47% of the home sales nationally this past year up from 36% in 2006. Now a lot of people who want to move up to an even nicer home can take advantage of a tax credit as long as they’ve lived in that home for five consecutive years in the past eight and the income limits have increased too. That‘s likely to increase the price ranges of homes that people will be looking at.

Since buyers have to have a binding contract in place by the end of April, smart buyers are going to be out there looking soon. I also think that a lot of people will be doing a lot of internet searching while they are together and have some free time over the holidays. Most people start a home search by perusing the internet before they contact a Realtor, so it might just pay to have your home be one of those they are looking at while taking time off during the Holidays.

Let’s talk a little about the three basics of successfully selling a home.

1. Many sellers feel strongly about the price set for their home, but they don’t realize that price has to be set based on location or condition.

A successful price is not something you just pull out of a hat. What is hard for some sellers to understand is that it isn’t really related to what they spent on the house or what they’ve spent on updates. A good price is one that is mostly based on objective information on what similar houses in similar condition in the immediate area have sold for because that is the information used by lenders when they are deciding how much money they will loan a buyer for their new mortgage on a particular house.

Even if a buyer is willing to offer anything, they can’t purchase a house for more than their lender will lend them. A good Realtor will provide the seller with research about prices in the area. Sellers need to pay attention to the market research their realtor provides and come up with a price that buyers looking at their house can get a loan for. 

They must also be aware of their competition, which are other homes on the market that a buyer will compare them too. Buyers are smart and their time is precious. Why would they go see a home that costs more than a similar home that costs less? There are usually enough options that they often will skip high priced houses without checking to see if the seller is willing to negotiate.

2. Condition combined with Staging is the second basic step for a successful sale.

It is so hard to see your home the same way buyers will when they walk through the door. Think about it like this. Your house has to dressed up like its going on a first date. You need to make a good first impression. Sellers don’t usually get a chance to make a second impression. If a buyers isn’t attracted to the front of the house, they may drive on by. If they don’t like the inside, even it it something kind of silly like it smells funny to them, they won’t stay and look around. If they don’t stay and look, they certainly won’t be tempted to buy. 

Buyers are educated by their realtors, by shows they see on TV, and by looking at the competition- and there is a lot of competition now days. They won’t pay top dollar for homes that aren’t in top condition. People need to have everything super clean, in good repair, and attractive to buyers or buyers will really negotiate hard on price or they might not even make an offer.

If you don’t have the resources to do maintenance and upgrades, hope for a sale is not lost. You and your Realtor to discuss your options and then use price and honest descriptions along with promoting the advantages you do have. Shellie and I know several handyman who can help with fix-ups. We also assist our sellers with the services of Shaw Designs. Wendy Shaw is a down to earth interior designer with staging expertise. She usually uses items the sellers have but in a way that will appeal to the average buyer. We reimburse our sellers for several hours of her time when the house is sold.

We’ve covered 2 of the 3 basic tried and true facts of life for home selling- even over the holidays-. Accurate pricing and condition so far. 

3. Marketing, which is the part of the process that Realtors have the most control over is hugely important and I hope that you will join us in January for the second part of this video.

In the meantime, if you have your home on the market, be patient and persistent – there are buyers out there, but they may only be looking not taking action until after the first of the year. If you are thinking about putting your home on the market in the Spring, consider doing it right now if it’s ready so that your home can be among those people are seeing on the internet while they sip hot chocolate and dream about the new year and the new home they want to live in.

Here's Our Downloadable List of Gift Ideas That Can Change a Life!

**Download our complete Alphabet of Gift Ideas and see what you can do for the special people in your life.**

If you have friends or family that are older or that have significant disabilities you may be at a loss for a great gift idea. At Home Access Solutions we’ve put together a fun little gift list from A to Z with interesting items and ideas.

We are heading into the season when many of us start thinking about gifts for the people we care about. Giving a gift is a loving gesture. The best gifts are those people treasure long after they are unwrapped and ones that have meaning and purpose. Sometimes it is hard to come up with that perfect gift. We all know people who are hard to buy gifts for. They either don’t want anything or have everything they need. But I’m talking about the other folks who are hard to buy for. If the People we care about have disabilities that are so severe they limit what they can do or use, it is often difficult to think of really meaningful or useful gifts. Let’s think out of the box and skip the same old knick knacks and aftershave collections! How much of that stuff can one house hold? Gifts don’t have to be expensive or fancy, but they can change a person’s life for the better.