Finding good home buyers--people who are interested, serious and ready to make an offer--is every seller’s goal. Finding these buyers isn’t just a matter of chance. You need to use the right techniques and make a strong appeal to the buyers who are most likely to make an offer on your home.
Highlight Your Home’s Features
Be clear about your home’s features and amenities. There’s no point in having hundreds of people view your property if it doesn’t meet their needs. Describe your home in clear detail in your listing, and pay attention to the details that matter to people: the number of bedrooms and baths, modern conveniences and features that make your home unique. If people know what your home has to offer, they’re more likely to self-qualify; people who aren’t interested in your home or its amenities simply won’t come to look at it. This helps to narrow the field to truly interested buyers.
Home Buyers Want a Lifestyle, Not a Property
From the moment home buyers enter your home, they’re looking for a lifestyle, not a property. Buyers want to imagine themselves in their dream home; they think about what it would be like to come home to dinner after work, or maybe even raise a family in the home. If you can help buyers build that picture in their heads, you’re that much closer to a home sale.
Stage your home to entice potential buyers. Bake fresh cookies before showings and open houses. Open the windows so a fresh breeze can come through the house. Put new flowers and a beautiful bench under a shade tree in the back garden. Help your potential buyers imagine the lifestyle they will enjoy in your home so they can picture themselves living there.
Research Trends in Remodeling
When people buy a home, they start with a vision of what they want in terms of space and style. If your home doesn’t match that vision, you’ll have a harder time making the sale. It’s helpful to research current trends in home sales and design to determine whether you can make any small changes to your home that will make it more appealing to buyers.
Trends change from year to year; in 2004, for example, buyers were looking for huge master bathrooms with whirlpool tubs, upstairs laundry rooms, dog showers and separate home theater rooms. By 2010, the housing market changed; homeowners had become more focused on value, and were happy to live without expensive amenities if a home met all of their basic needs.
In general, kitchens and bathrooms are always areas that could use some freshening to appeal to home buyers. Keep in mind, though, that you might not get your money back if you embark on any expensive remodeling projects just before you sell your home. Some things, like granite countertops or stainless-steel appliances, may actually turn off some buyers. The best plan is to keep remodeling simple so that home buyers see something they can improve, rather than something they need to replace.
