Follow These 6 Tips For Success
Maybe you already had your house on the market, or you were planning on selling it soon, and then a global pandemic hit the U.S. and sent everyone home — halting our lives. You aren’t alone. Many Americans were gearing up for what was looking like a hot spring housing market, and now aren’t sure what to do: Move forward with caution? Or, wait and see? Moving forward is certainly a possibility, and we’ve outlined these six tips to help you follow a path to a successful home sale.
Stage your home
The first tip for any home sale is getting it ready for the stage, and the COVID-19 situation is no exception. In fact, it might be more important than ever to get your home looking its best, so you can sell it quickly. Before you show your home, you want to transform it into an inviting place for everyone. Decluttering will help, but you may want to consider hiring a professional stager (in this case, one who you can meet with virtually) who can give your house that universal welcome home feeling. Stagers may recommend that you revamp what you already have, especially now, moving furniture around, adding lighting, or swapping out existing art for neutral pieces. Adding flowers, plants, and accents to the inside of your home are a few tips to follow for DIY staging in the spring.
Clean, clean, clean
Professional real estate agents recommend that sellers declutter and deep clean the inside of their homes before putting them on the market. This advice stands for selling a home any time of year, and especially now. Cleaning is especially important if you are going to invite potential buyers in your home who might be concerned about the coronavirus — buyers will appreciate that just cleaned look, to keep them at ease. After every showing, even if your agent is only doing a virtual tour, disinfect all high-touch surfaces, like doorknobs.
Go digital
Virtual meetings aren’t just for yoga, and work calls, in these days of a coronavirus lockdown, virtual may also be the way to go to make sure you are reaching the greatest pool of potential buyers. Beyond an online listing, which you probably already have, you’ll want to think about virtual showings. Agents are talking about offering Zoom open houses, showing potential buyers around, and answering questions live on video, and scheduling them as you would any other open house or showing.
Prepare a virtual roadmap
To prepare for this virtual open house, work with your agent to set a script and roadmap for how you will present your home, as you would with a regular viewing. While it might require some extra coordination, the carefully-orchestrated virtual showing will be your top tool for marketing a house during coronavirus.
Get organized
Other than virtual showings, you’ll want to prepare all of the information about your house so it’s digital too. You can create a file for interested buyers that contains all of the information that they might want about your home — details about inspections, warranties, repairs, and anything else as advised by your agent. This folder can help put a potential buyer at ease and give them crucial information about your home before they are able to visit it in-person, and it’s one of our top selling tips during coronavirus.
Take extra precautions for in-person showings
It’s unlikely that you will be able to sell your house without at least one showing to your buyer. Data from HomeLight’s Top Agent Insights Survey for Q1 2020 shows that before the crisis, agents reported that only 5% of their transactions involved a buyer making an offer on a property sight-unseen, and only 30% of agents feel like sight-unseen transactions are on the rise in their markets. In the Coronavirus time, a live showing is advised after a virtual tour, with serious buyers only, and with precautions to keep you, your family, and buyers safe. The ideal scenario is that you aren’t living in your home, but if you are, keep these tips in mind: Allow your agent to show your home to only one person at a time, keeping a distance of six feet apart. Ask the potential buyer to wash their hands or provide hand sanitizer at the door. You can even take it a step up by providing masks for everyone involved.
Our number one tip for sellers during this time, is to stay calm. Work with your agent to take the steps necessary to achieve your real estate goals, while keeping yourself and your family safe.
For more help, contact the Ashley Wilson Realty Group today.
Article provided to you by:
Maddi Arcurio
Marketing Coordinator, Communications at Homelight