Selling your property for the best price possible can help you upgrade to your dream home. But achieving a good sale price takes more than listing your home on the market and hoping for the best.
That’s why you need to pay attention to what are known as the “three Ps of real estate” – price, promotion and presentation.
If you excel in all three areas, you’ll give yourself the best chance of selling your home for top dollar.
Make sure the price is right
You don’t want to set your advertised price too low or too high: instead, you want it to be just right.
There are two problems with setting the price too low:
- If you set the advertised price below the reserve price to attract more buyers, you’re violating underquoting laws
- If you set the reserve price artificially low to whip up (legitimate) interest, you might attract the wrong kind of buyer
It can also be a mistake to set your price artificially high in the belief you’re getting a ‘free hit’. The argument is there’s nothing to lose, because you either sell the home for an above-market price … or fail to do so, in which case you then reduce your price to the market rate. But there are two problems with this strategy:
- Properties generally attract most interest when they’re fresh on the market
- Buyers assume there must be something wrong with a property if it’s languishing on the market and the vendor has reduced the price
If you get the pricing just right, you give yourself the best chance of attracting the right kind of buyer and maximising legitimate interest.
Go hard on marketing
The more buyers who compete for your home, the more money you’re likely to get.
So how do you maximise buyer interest? By investing in marketing. That might include paying for some or all of the following:
- Professional photography
- Professional video
- Drone footage
- A 3D floor-plan
- Online advertising
- Print advertising
- Social media advertising
- Signboards
- Direct mail
Generally, you, as the vendor, have to pay for marketing, and you have to do so before your home gets sold. If you can’t afford that upfront investment, you might want to consider ‘vendor advertising finance’, which is effectively a short-term loan.
Remember – you can’t sell a secret. Buyers won’t compete for your home if they don’t know it’s on the market.
Spruce up your home
You only get one chance to make a first impression. If buyers don’t fall in love with your property the first time they see it, it’s unlikely they ever will.
With that in mind, you need to invest time and/or money (yes, more money!) in making your home look more enticing. That might include some combination of:
- Doing cosmetic renovations
- Cleaning inside and out
- Removing clutter
- Painting the walls
- Beautifying the garden
- Fixing the fencing
- Hiring a professional stylist
Choose your agent carefully
Finally, it’s also important to find a good real estate agent. An agent who works hard, who’s good at marketing and who’s good at negotiating could significantly outperform an agent who might be lazy, a poor marketer or a poor negotiator.
Potentially, the good agent might get you a price that’s tens of thousands of dollars higher than the bad agent.
