Home selling secrets

Every homeowner is looking for home selling secrets guaranteed to get their homes sold in the shortest amount of time for the highest price possible.

When you purchased your house, you expected its value to climb and climb and climb. If you bought prior to 2005, it did just that. Then the market began to roll downhill. It hasn’t stopped since.

So what are the secrets for selling your home? Only this:

The past can’t be changed.
The future can’t be predicted.
Only the present counts.

If you keep these secrets in mind every step of the way, you WILL sell your home quickly and for the most money the market will bear.

This isn’t the answer you were looking for.But if I told you anything different — like real estate is about to explode and prices will skyrocket through the roof — you wouldn’t believe me.

I could advise you to sell nowby arguing the market will get even worse next year. But I really don’t know what the market will be next week much less 12 months from now.

I could advise you to wait until the market bounces back. But I don’t know when it’ll bounce back. Or bottom out. Or how fast … or slow … the recovery will be when it finally arrives.

This is what I can tell you.When the market reaches bottom, it could take less than 10 years to regain the top, more than 30 years, or anything in between.

You have a reason for wanting to sell your house. If it’s a good enough reason, then you really have no choice but to deal with current market conditions.

Why homeowners don’t sell. Some homeowners try to fight market conditions instead of dealing with them. Once you know what you’re up against … and can accept it … then you’re ready for the next step. Nobody knows your circumstances better than you do. So be honest with yourself. Brutally honest. Only by examining your brain and your heart will you know what you have to do to achieve your goals. 

What should you do?Should you jump into the market with both feet? Or wait on the sidelines for the market to change? I wish I could advise you either way, but I’d be doing you a disservice if I told you to take one path over the other.

Whenever you put your house on the market, make sure you know the current housing ‘temperature’ of your neighborhood. Not last year. Not 6 months into the future. But now. Because buyers will only purchase a house based on current market value. 

A parable about ‘location, location, location’. Let’s say you’re strolling along Chicago’s lakeshore, taking advantage of the first days of summer. You’re at Clark Street Beach in Evanston. A friend calls you from Gillson Park in Wilmette and asks, “How’s the water?” You answer, “Nice.”

Taking your local weather report as fact, your friend streaks through the shallows and makes a running dive headfirst into the water.

When he gets back on the phone, he screams, “Why the heck didn’t you tell me it’s friggin’ cold!” 

Had he asked you — Which beach? Is the sun out? Are you swimming? — you could have given him a more relevant report … and kept him from diving into frigid waters.

This is how real estate is. You can only gauge the ‘real estate temperature’ by studying your own neighborhood.

The first 14 days. The first 14 days of listing your house are the most critical. As soon as your house hits the MLS, serious homebuyers who have been waiting in the wings will make a mad rush to see it. This is the moment when opportunity knocks. This is also the moment when multiple bids can drive up the selling price.

After the first 14 days, that first wave of interest dries up, and your house will likely sit on the market for months, forcing you to chase down the right price.

The ‘sweet spot’– The ‘sweet spot’ is the price at which buyers will flock to see your house and then make an offer to purchase. Finding the ‘sweet spot’ takes hard work on the part of your real estate agent and honesty when it comes to you. If you want to sell your house, you’ll eventually have to list your house at the ‘sweet spot’, if not now then months from now. So you may as well do it now.

Name that tune in one note. I’m sure you’ve played the game. The opening guitar strain of A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles is all you need to ‘name that tune’, right?

It’s the same with real estate. The one note — or word — you need to know about selling your house is this: P R I C E

Price has always been king. But in today’s climate, price is more important than ever.

I’m sure you don’t want to hear that price is the possibly the most important aspect of selling your house. What about quality? you ask. Amenities? Size? Location? Move-in readiness? They’re also important but not as important, and here’s why …

Buyers. In this climate, buyers fear that as soon as the ink is dry on the contract, their dream house will go down in value. So unless your house demonstrates ‘extraordinary value’ for its quality, amenities, size, location, and move-in readiness, chances are it will be ignored by serious buyers in favor of houses that do offer EXTRAORDINARY VALUE.

What about marketing?Marketing has its indisputable place in real estate. Houses for sale must appear everywhere homebuyers are looking. But no amount of marketing can overcome an overpriced house.

Glory days. The real estate bubble was only that … a bubble. Skyrocketing prices weren’t for real. Sure, if you purchased your house at the height of the market, the money you invested was, and still is, very real to you. But price increases from 2005 to 2007 were fueled by wild speculation and easy money. For now, the pendulum has swung too far the other way — all the way back to 2000 in most neighborhoods — and it won’t swing back for years, if not decades.

Being upside-down can make you dizzy.If you purchased your house after the year 2000 … and depending on its location … you probably won’t be able to sell your house for more than the original purchase price. There’s no way around it except to wait out the market for who know how many years, take the loss now if you can, or sell your house as a Short Sale.

“I really don’t have to sell.”The variation of this is, “I’m not going to give my house away.” When sellers say this, they really mean, “If I can’t get my price, I won’t sell my house.” If this is how you feel, DON’T put your house back on the market since you’ve already set yourself up for failure.

So now you have it … the home selling secrets guaranteed to get your home sold in the shortest amount of time for the most money the market will bear.

It’s Judy … your North Shore Chicago real estate agent.