Showing the Full Potential of Homes for Sale
It is time to get yourself ready to show your home to potential buyers. Today,FlatFee.com has some great tips to surely help you sell your home more quickly.
A Fresh Look to Sell a House
You should have created enough emotional distance between yourself and your MLS listing in Birminghan, AL or other city that you are ready for people to come through and see it as just a house and not as a memory. Before you show your home, walk through it yourself or with a friend. You are trying to look for things that you typically would not have noticed while you lived there. Start through the front door and work your way around the house looking for dark areas, things that may need to be repaired or freshened up or even clutter you may have forgotten to remove. When you show your home, you do not want any of these things to be a problem for a buyer.
Let There Be Light!
Open up every curtain, blind, shade and drape. Before your first guest arrives, turn on the lights in every room. Flood your flat fee MLS listing with light. This will not only ensure that your potential buyer sees everything that you see in the home, but it will help your home seem far more appealing and spacious than it ever would if it were dark. For darker rooms, use brighter bulbs or add in another lamp.
Stimulate the Senses
If it is warm outside, be sure that your thermostat is set at a comfortable level for guests to feel refreshed. Conversely, if it is cold and you need a sweater, turn up the heat! You want this to feel like a home to your guests, and that means livable temperatures.
Entice potential buyers with inviting scents when you show your home. However, do be careful about lighting candles or using scented plug-ins in your rooms. Many people are allergic to these chemicals and will obviously be turned away from viewing more of your home because of it. You may however bake foods to inspire a more homey sensation. It is also a good idea to have a table ready with refreshments such as:
- Cookies
- Cupcakes
- Lemonade
- Hot or cold tea
- Cups, plates and other utensils
Be warned however: If you create the smell of cookies and lemonade in your home for potential buyers, there should be some for them to enjoy. You implied they were there, and it is not very nice to tease!
Looking Around
When showing your home, be sure to introduce every room to your visitors but hang back by the doorway. You do not want to accidently make a space feel smaller by having too many people in it. Your potential buyers will also feel a lot less pressured if you are not hovering over them. Show them the basics, point out unique features or dimensions that your flat fee MLS listing may not have mentioned and hang back. For smaller rooms such as bathrooms or laundry, invite your guests to enter but do not do so yourself.
After you have shown the home to your potential buyers, go off into another room and make yourself busy. This will allow your guests to talk amongst themselves about what they do and do not like about your home without them feeling pressured or you feeling awkward that they didn’t love the features that you love dearly.
A Lovely Neighborhood
Your home is more than just the room and the yard around it. It belongs to a neighborhood with schools, parks and other attractions. Be prepared to tell your guests about the local amenities, the kinds of schools and stores that are nearby, and generally how friendly everyone else is, because the MLS listing won’t reveal the benefits of your home the way you can. Doing so will definitely help sell your home more quickly.
In summary: Make your home seem spacious and inviting to help sell it more quickly. Hang back, answer questions, and leave out cookies. And do not forget to smile!
