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Why You Need To Sell 4 Times To Get 1 Closing!
You know the rule when you’re ready to sell: “You only need ONE Buyer!”
While that is technically true, to ultimately get the most money for your house, in the shortest time period, with the least headaches, setbacks, and chances of things “going sideways”…
Yes, you just need that ONE buyer, but you need to “sell” your house four times.
Confused? Read on!
1) Sell The Realtor
The first “sale” must be to the Realtor who you ultimately choose to list your house. This is the guy or gal who’s going to bring your house to market either with enthusiasm and gusto, or without.
You WANT them as excited about your house as possible right from the get-go, and the way you do that is to get your house as absolutely clean, fixed up, picked up, brightened up and freshened up as you can possibly do… BEFORE that Realtor ever sees it for the first time.
Make no mistake: Just because us Realtors are “in the business” and (if we’re good) we’ll give you plenty of coaching and/or a written/photo-illustrated report on how to be 100% ready for the market, if you take a pro-active approach before we even see your house and get it looking sweet, we’ll be inclined to give you a higher estimated market value when we talk price. So that’s sale #1: Sell your house to your Realtor.
2) The Buyer
The second sale is indeed to that ONE buyer who is destined to be the new owner of the house. If you’ve nailed the price, the staging, the entire emotional algorithm that attracts and swoons “The One” to the point of reaching mutual acceptance on an offer… then Congratulations! You’re half way there.
3) The Home Inspector
The third sale is going to take place in the following few days after mutual acceptance, when the Home Inspector shows up.
Make no mistake: There is no one, NO ONE, more capable of easily de-railing a pending sale than the buyer’s home inspector.
The Inspector’s job is to find out what’s wrong with the house, tell the buyer all about, then document it and deliver it again, in writing, to the buyer. So you want to “sell” to the inspector by, again, presenting a perfectly clean, well maintained, pleasant-to-be-in house. You also want to take extra care in ensuring easy, un-obstructed access to all the mechanicals like the electric service panel, the furnace and water heater, and the access hatches to the attic and crawl space. Make the say “Welcome, Mr. Inspector! Enjoy yourself!”
4) The Appraiser
Just one more sale required, and that one is to the appraiser! The appraiser is hired by the bank to determine the value of the house and guess what: Appraisers are human, too, so they’re emotionally affected by the same pristine presentation as everyone else.
You do NOT want to let the house slip into a state of chaos before the appraiser shows up. On the contrary, you’d do well to think of the appraiser as the main buyer himself. Bake some cookies, give those windows one more polish, kick on the lights and open the shades. Successfully sell your house to the appraiser, the final of the four sales, and you’re on to closing!!!
If you go into the listing and selling process of your home thinking like this article suggests and acting on the advice, you’ll be light-years ahead of the competition. It’s war out there…. so Go Get ‘Em Soldier!!!
