How to get your house sold in today’s market

So you want to sell your home in this crowded market, but agents are telling you it will be hard to move it with all the homes on the market, what can you do? There are some basic steps you can do to make sure you home stands out.

1. Price it right. Your real estate agent will get paid more the more your home sells for, they are not looking to give your home away so trust them on pricing. They are telling you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear to get the home sold.
2. Market it more than just on the MLS. Your real estate agent may tell you your home will be marketed on Realtor.com. That is great, you and every other house in the MLS that will automatically be put onto Realtor.com. More than 80% of home buyers are starting their searches on the Internet. Talk to your agent and ask them what else they will be doing besides the syndication that their MLS gives the.
3. Make your home shine. You likely will not be able to beat foreclosure properties in price so you need to make your home stand out. Spend a little money to have the house cleaned professionally and get a storage location you can store a lot of your possessions in. The less clutter in the house the larger it will look.
4. Curb appeal. Many lazy real estate agents that work with buyers will send the buyers a list of homes and tell the buyers to go drive by the outside and if you are interested I will show you the house. If the buyer is decided to look at your home or not based on a drive-by, you better make sure it looks good outside. Spend an hour or two every weekend keeping up with the front landscaping. It can make a difference in visits.
5. Pictures, pictures, pictures. If someone is going to be judging your home on the Internet, show them what they are getting. Make sure your agent is providing buyers a lot of pictures of not only the home, but the community and what the neighborhood has to offer. Would you buy this home based on the pictures? If not then get new pictures.
6. Neighborhood efforts. If there are a lot of homes for sale in your neighborhood a joint open house day may help. Just like a joint garage sale may get more traffic, so will a joint open house. Just make sure your house is the one that shines when people come in (see number 3 above).
7. Become a second agent. Just because you have a selling agent doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be trying to sell your home too. Once your agent develops a webpage for your home (and make sure they do) then e-mail a link to that page to all your friends. Your friends may not be looking for a home, but more thank likely a few of them know someone looking. Use your network.