Sunday, July 25, 2010

Creative Strategies for Getting Your Home Sold

Due to the extremely high inventory of homes for sale in many locations in the United States homeowners need creative marketing strategies to set their homes apart form the rest. Sellers are virtually competing with other comparable homes for sale in the neighborhoods as well as short sales, foreclosures and bank owned properties. The goal of the seller is to attract a large pool of buyers to their homes by utilizing a combination of creative marketing strategies including maximizing exposure, proper pricing, and offering incentives to buyers and their realtors in order to sell their homes for maximum dollar and in a short period of time. The following listing of marketing tips should get your home sold within a couple of months. I hope that this can be of help for someone who is struggling in the sale of their home.

Here are some creative marketing strategy tips:

Price home at or below market value.
Buyers are looking for value and good deals. It's a buyers market and will be for a long time to come so overpricing is the wrong marketing strategy to follow. Savvy buyers are educated about the home prices in their neighborhood. They will make offers on overpriced properties because they know the sellers are unrealistic.

Offer buyer incentives. The following are suggestions of various buyer incentives that sellers may want to offer their buyers:

Seller financing. Sellers who are in a position to offer seller financing to potential buyers should consider doing so because traditional lenders have tightened their lending policies making it more difficult for buyers, even with good credit, to obtain financing. By offering the buyer financing, you can be one step ahead of the competition. Worst case scenerio if the buyer defaults, you take back your real estate.

Paying the buyer's closing costs.

Prepaying homeowner or condo association dues for the buyer for six months or one year if you own a townhome, condo or live in a subdivision that is governed by a condo or homeowner association.

Concessions for repairs or paying for repairs before the close of escrow.

Gift certificates, travel vouchers for cruises or airline tickets, or giving away big ticket items such as flat screen televisions or washers/dryers, etc.

Offer incentives to Realtors.
Smart sellers recognize that offering incentives to Realtors is good business and pays off because a Realtor would rather show their buyer your real estate that pays them a 4% commission than another property that is offering a 2% or 3% commission, providing the homes are comparable and meet the buyer's needs. Another option is to offer the selling agent a bonus if the buyer closes by a certain date.

Professionally Stage You Home

There are several companies that will professionally stage your home with beautiful furniture and accessories to make it look more appealing to a larger pool of buyers.

Once you have your home dressed up and looking fantastic take some pictures of it with a digital camera. Send out greeting cards with pictures of your property in them announcing the sale of your property to your sphere of influence. People keep greeting cards around for a long time and this will signal a reminder to your friends and acquaintances that there is a cool house to be sold in your neighborhood.

Remember in this market pristine and price are the key selling points to get your property sold and off the market.

The whole concept of marketing your home is to stand out from the competition, think outside the box and be creative. That is why more sellers are listing their homes with experienced Realtors because they recognize the value of a real estate professional's expertise in selling and marketing homes in this challenging real estate market.

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