One thing about pictures when it comes to selling your home is that the picture itself won’t sell the home. It will simply let the buyer make a decision whether or not they want to look at the house or not. The question then becomes, how many pictures to use?

One thing about pictures when it comes to selling your home is that the picture itself won’t sell the home. It will simply let the buyer make a decision whether or not they want to look at the house or not. The question then becomes, how many pictures to use?

The answer obviously varies depending on the house, location, price and yes your camera. I used a point-and-shoot sony camera when I first got started in real estate and it did a great job at taking pictures. My upgrade to a better camera came when I started seeing the plethora of it-is-not-about-the-pictures agents who use their mobile phone (did I really just say mobile phone instead of cell phone or camera phone?) to take pictures of the house they intend to sell. These pictures are smaller than my thumb and blurry so I don’t really know what the point of uploading them really is.

Or what about those who take pictures of a room using a standard lens and therefore you get a nice shot of two walls and the corner of a room. If this is the picture you are hoping will get the buyer to jump out of their seat, call their agent and arrange a showing, trust me you are better off to just have a picture of the front of the house. At least it builds curiosity on what the rest of the house looks like. So, unless you have a wide angle lens, I would stay away from taking pictures of small rooms and bathrooms.

What makes good photography, umm…. good? Well it’s not so much about the camera, it’s more about the lens and the lighting. I personally use a Nikon D60, but if you don’t want to look like a tour guide (or where’s waldo), and if you are not into photography then a good point-and-shoot camera should be sufficient. Keep in mind that with point and shoot cameras you don’t have to worry about ISO settings, shutter speed, aperture, etc. We have enough to learn as agents to even bother….

Yeah it’s nice to take good pictures, but really you don’t have to go spend hundreds to promote a listing as long as you keep in mind what pictures are doing for you and how they are helping you sell the listing. It’s as simple as looking at your own listing and thinking to yourself “if I were a buyer, would I want to go look at this home based on the picture(s)?”. If your answer is no then you need a better picture or you are selling a home that doesn’t need more than a picture of the front.

Good pictures can really help you drive traffic to your listing, but I think that more pictures and better quality should be left for higher end listings that really require more attention to detail.

Pictures are like the SAT’s. If you get them right you get points towards selling a home. If you don’t use them well you don’t get points, but if you get it wrong, you can actually lose points. So use pictures to drive traffic and know that some pictures can actually cause you to lose traffic. (It’s worth repeating)

If there is a word that is universally loathed it must be the word prevention. Normally we don’t prevent things from happening. We just try to fix what’s already wrong and put off everything else.

Preventing home buyers from finding a little blunder throughout your house is something to dread for. But hey, if you [...]]]>

If there is a word that is universally loathed it must be the word prevention. Normally we don’t prevent things from happening. We just try to fix what’s already wrong and put off everything else.

Preventing home buyers from finding a little blunder throughout your house is something to dread for. But hey, if you want to sell fast and for top dollar, then this must not be ignored.

Here’s how to do it without compromising your sanity.

The first step in preparing your home for sale is in decluttering the house top to bottom. You’re moving, why not start packing what you don’t use (which will be a lot as you’ll find out). Your closet should have about 50% free space. I know it’s harder for the ladies, especially with many shoes and what not.

Book shelves should also occupy only about 50% of the designed space. Go to places like Ikea or model homes to get an idea. They’ll have only 2-3 books on a shelf where you could easily jam 7-8 books.

This will give you the ilusion that there’s more space and it makes buyers want to fill in that space.

You want them to do that (hint, hint!)

Keeping your home neatly organized can work wonders, but we are after the buyer’s pockets. Yes, we want to ask them for 3-5% more than the home that just sold. We can do that if we can have the buyer feel like they are home.

Here’s a tip I got from a home seller when I was showing a home with a client. She had the cleanest house I’d seen out of hundreds and hundreds of homes. What’s more interesting, they had 2 young kids.

Unlike other homes, there was not a single toy in sight, no hand prints on the wall or dust to be seen or detected even with a white glove. I had to ask her how she kept it so clean and how long did it take? Did they allow the kids to play? I mean this was unbelievable.

She actually cleans less than the average person. It was simply a habit and it was methodical. One day she’d focus on one thing and the next day on another. Since you’ll be showing your home to home buyers you want to keep your home clean at all times. Cleaning your home top to bottom everyday would just be insane, but by focusing on small areas at once, you may keep the house clean and ready to demand for more money than the homes around you for sale.

You must combine desirability, demand, and affordability in you home to sell fast and for top dollar.

Today’s focus will be on creating demand for your home. This is not as hard as you may think. Demand for your home will inevitably be the catalyst to drive up the price of your home. This is [...]]]>

You must combine desirability, demand, and affordability in you home to sell fast and for top dollar.

Today’s focus will be on creating demand for your home. This is not as hard as you may think. Demand for your home will inevitably be the catalyst to drive up the price of your home. This is nothing more than supply VS demand. Supply being only one home (yours), and demand being more than one highly interested buyer.

So here it goes…

The way to create demand for your home is to offer buyers what they want.

That’s it…. the big secret is out.

Yet this is the hardest thing any home seller will do. This includes pricing your home correctly. It is everywhere. Home sellers know this intuitively, yet the average home on the market is priced 7% over market value.

But wait, there’s more. Offering price alone is not enough. Oh, no. Home buyers are greedy. This is their weakness. It will be your lure at the end of your hook to reel them in and create demand for your home. Here’s what I mean…

If your home is within the first time home buyer price range, you must go talk to your nearest lender and have them give you different financing options you could offer to a qualified buyer. Specifically have them give you little or no money down financing options so you can offer that to your prospective buyers.

If your home is in a higher price range, you can have the lender give you low monthly payment options such as interest only loans.

Now take note here. The loan doesn’t have to be the one the buyer uses, but the terms will be what will attract the buyer in the first place and once you have them you’ve created demand for your home. It is at that point that desirability and affordability come into play.

Packaging and design kills competitors in many markets. It’s no wonder millions (billions?) are spent on this unseemingly significant part of selling a product. In your case as a home seller, your home is your product and while you can’t change certain things such as location or the floorplan of your home, there are [...]]]>

Packaging and design kills competitors in many markets. It’s no wonder millions (billions?) are spent on this unseemingly significant part of selling a product. In your case as a home seller, your home is your product and while you can’t change certain things such as location or the floorplan of your home, there are many things you can do to increase the desireability for your home.

If you haven’t done so alredy, the most cost effective and easy thing you can do is to remove clutter and put in storage everything you don’t need. If you have books on a book shelf, leave only enough to take up 30-50% of the total book shelf space. In your bedroom closets, leave only enough clothes to take up no more than 30-50% as well. This gives home buyers the illusion that there is tons of space. The closets will seem roomy and they begin to see themselves filling it up with their own stuff.

In sales a great strategy used by the best salesmen is to get the customer to see themselves using the product before they buy it. This is what you accomplish with these tips.

It’s important to neutralize colors and remove any decorations. This will allow the buyer to imagine their own decorations and desired colors.

You must declare war on dust and dirt. There are things you can clean easily that will really lift the look and feel of the home. If you have tile floors, chances of your grout being dirty in the kitchen area and high traffic areas is extremely high. You should either clean it or paint it. Both methods are cheap and easy.

Fix everything no matter how insignificant you may think it is. When it comes to negotiating the significance of little problems seem to become extremely big and may cause you the sale of your home or thousands of dollars.

By following these tips you will increase the emotional appeal of your home. Home buyers buy based on emotion and by targeting their emotions you can drive up the price of your home and sell it faster.