Selling your home in a rising market can be an exciting venture. However, there still needs to be a level of non-emotion to help you achieve the best pricing and fastest sale. Here’s two tips to sell your house fast.
 
#1) Know your competition
 
What tends to motivate homeowners to sell is necessity or desire. If prices have been going up, it’s typically desire. If it’s a job move, separation, or just time to move on or up, then you may need to sell. Either way, it’s important to know what’s happening and what Buyers’ options are. This, in large part, will help determine what your house can fetch, and what might need to be done to get the highest price.
 
Even though the market may be on a healthy upward trend where you’re at, as in many parts of the US right now, it doesn’t cancel out several important pieces.
 
A) If it’s a financed Buyer, the house has to appraise at the price you’ve agreed on. If it doesn’t, the Buyer can cancel, or you (both) have to agree to a lower price, or new price/terms. Takeaway, even if you procure a pie in the sky price, that FHA or financed Buyer may not have the money to come in with the difference of what you want vs what the house is actually worth.
 
In part, your listing agent is to blame. They should know better than to list the property so high with no supporting comparables for the appraiser to draw from to support the price. They may have thrown a number out to win the listing, but it’s much better to start off with someone that can speak in terms of reality instead of focusing on a paycheck. It becomes a bad customer service experiment, all around.
 
B) If it’s a cash Buyer, they will most likely talk you down in price if the house is not (nearly) perfect. In this instance, it’s great to come up with a cost analysis side by side with your agent before you list. For instance, if we spend $10,000 on the kitchen, we will get $20,000 more for the home. If we leave it as is, we will make $5,000 less than what we need to. This ties right back into seeing what the neighbors/surrounding area has to offer, and what your best options are.
 
You should know what is available in your neighborhood, at what price, how long it’s been on the market, and what activity there is.
 
C)To play devils advocate, just because you upgrade and remodel does not necessarily mean the house will fly off the market, either. If you’re the best property in a neighborhood full or run-down, unkempt properties, there’s not going to be many, if any motivated Buyers that want to have the best house on the worst street.
 
Again, talk with a trusted licensed professional to get a realistic view of what’s available, what your house could appraise for, and a game plan of what could be done to get top dollar and/or to meet your needs.
 
#2) It’s not always about what you want
 
Ouch! As someone who strives to deliver high-end customer service, I cringe just to write that sentence. Your house may be where your kids grew up, you know the market is going up, and those darn Buyers better just pay want you want if they want YOUR house! Well, that’s not exactly how selling your home works.
 

What you’ve spent on the house in upgrades, time, effort, and affection doesn’t really matter. It matters to you, sure, but in the scheme of thing it has no bearing on the ultimate price of the house. At the end of the day, the house is worth what it’s worth, and whatever difference between what’s owed on the property and what you’ve put into it with either make you a profit or cause you a loss.
 
All the updating may help the house sell faster or attract more appeal, but try explaining to the Buyers, “Can’t you please pay more, though? The Seller bought this house 10 years ago and spent $40,000 to over remodel it to their liking! Now they need to get their money back.” See what the response would be to that! The Buyers just want to buy a house that works for them, at a price that matches market value or below.
 
I’ve certainly had clients that didn’t realize they couldn’t make as much, and elect to wait to sell. If they have the flexibility to do so, waiting can also be a tactic.
 
This is where real estate investors DO make decisions based around what their net profit would be, and how much in remodeling they’d have to spend to achieve that desired amount. In either case, you can request a “Net Sheet” to itemize what you could expect to make or lose on the sale, all costs considered.
 
With all the tactical pricing strategy involved, make sure to do your homework to find a qualified listing agent in your area that can give you the truth about your homes value, set realistic expectations, and deliver a top-notch selling strategy.
 
If you’re considering selling a home in the Phoenix area, please think of us first! Otherwise, do you find these tips helpful? What other pricing tips have you learned? If you like this info, please share with your friends!
 
Tracy (G+) is an Arizona Short Sale Realtor, Investor, Rehabber, and Foreclosure Expert.
 
She also is an avid blogger, vlogger, contributor to Real Estate Magazines, and hosts Real Estate Rescue, a show dedicated to the distressed property market.