How to Sell your Home Fast in 2018
The National Association of Realtors does extensive research every year on the real estate market. It puts out paid reports that spell out exactly what makes a home sell, what might impact a buyer’s decision on a home, and how the buyer finds the home they are looking for.
What will make your home sell fast in 2018?
According to the NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2017 report:
- 95% of home buyers used the internet to search for their next home.
- 90% of buyers also used a real estate agent to assist them in their search.
- 7% of buyers used an open house in their home search.
- 2% of buyers who used the internet to search for a home, bought from sellers they knew.
- About 1% of buyers used a different method than the above to find their next home. This includes all print advertising methods, TV, and Radio.
How can your real estate agent help your home sell faster?
- Pay Extra Online
- Pay for Professional Photos
- Hold Open Houses
- Coming Soon Listings
- Quick Response Time
If you read the above, it is quite clear, the internet is the number one factor in a home buyers search process. Here I’d like to ask an important question. As a listing agent trying to sell my client’s homes faster and for more money, what can I do to influence their online presence? Quite a bit actually. There are opportunities in the major real estate search portals to pay extra to feature home sellers properties online. In some cases, this simply means the agent will be able to better “brand” the listing. In other cases, this featuring will actually significantly impact how many times that home is viewed on the portal. We pay extra to the top real estate websites, including Zillow, Realtor.com, and others to get more views on our client’s listings. This results in their homes selling faster and for more.
The photos of the home were rated by surveyed buyers as more important than the home’s description, videos, maps, neighborhood information, or anything else displayed. Professional home photography is simply a must. Depending on the needs of a home we also add videos, 3D modeling, drone videos, and more.
If you look at the list above of how home buyers find their next property, you’ll notice open houses are more important than flyers, or any other form of home advertisement except online home searches. Even though it is only 7% of home buyers, that is still enough. Now, I understand some homes are not suitable for public open houses, like million dollar luxury properties or high-rise condos, but if your home is suitable for an open house, my team holds them.
NAR’s research does not yet include the impact of coming-soon listings, at least not that I can find in their reports. We have had great success in utilizing the coming soon status in RMLS. These coming-soon listings generate “steam”, produce interested buyers we can inform in advance as to when the home will be listed on the public real estate market. This helps us have a better chance at selling the home in the first weekend on market.
Another factor in selling a home fast, that is hard to quantify in a research report, is your listing agent’s response time to buyer inquiries on your home. We average less than 3 minutes response time to online buyer inquiries on our listings through the major search portals like Zillow. Our system runs 24/7 and connects the buyer with live support in less than 3 minutes through text. We are able to answer buyer’s questions quickly and efficiently, as well as schedule a home tour with qualified buyers.
Real Estate Agents Are Not All the Same
We have top 1% listing agent specialists and top 1% buyer’s agent specialists on our small team. We run a top 1% listing team in the greater Portland metro due to pay less and get more model. We charge a max of 4.25% commission while paying more to market our homes so they sell faster and for more. We know how to sell homes fast in the Portland metro. Let us put our focused experience to work for you!
