How to Get Top Dollar When You Sell Your Home
Any real estate agent can sell a home in this red hot real estate market. But how much money are you leaving on the table by not selecting the correct agent to sell your home? I'm Barb Schlinker with Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty Colorado, and I've helped thousands of home sellers command top dollar, just in the past few transactions. I have commanded $57,000 over asking price for cash, $60,000 over asking price, $35,000 over asking price. And it's not by pricing the low market value. I don't believe in that. I think you should price realistically versus optimistically. So with this low inventory, a lot of buyers are going to throw their hat in the ring. And many of them are bidding over asking price just to get a house, but there's a way to do it, a way not to do it. Here's an example. I recently brought one of my buyers to a listing and that brand new agent put the house on the market, day one, I run down there, take pictures and video from my buyer.
I go back, I draft up the offer and by the time I emailed the offer out to the buyer, it was already pending. So it wasn't even one full day on the market. And they had already accepted an offer and took it off the market. Well, how do they know my buyer or some other buyers that saw the home would not pay more? They didn't give it any time. So we don't do that. We want to go all the way through a weekend and make sure all the buyer population has a chance to see the home. And they all get a chance to throw their hat in the ring so that you get to pick the best buyer. Here's another story. I had a home down in a really popular area in this town and the seller told me upfront, Hey, I will be so happy with a $585,000 price.
So sure enough, when we started showing we got that full price on day one, I said, do you want to stick with the plan or keep going? They said, stick with the plan. They were so happy because after a few days, they ended up getting $60,000 more than asking price. And the buyer was willing to throw cash into it. If the appraiser did not think it was worth that much. So how do you get top dollars? Not just pricing, it's 3 key things, preparation, pricing, and promotion. You're in control of preparation and even in this hot market, I would make the house look great. Present the home in the best possible way, because you only have 57 seconds before a buyer is moving on. If they don't like the pictures. And we focus on that as well. Number 2 is pricing. I recommend pricing realistically versus optimistically.
In this market, when you accept a contract, the seller is committed. The buyers have all kinds of opportunities to back out for many various reasons, the sellers have very little. If they ask for inspection repairs and you don't want to do it, and they don't withdraw it, you can back out or if it doesn't appraise and they're not willing to come up with a difference in cash, those are the only two outs for a seller. So it's a big deal and you don't want the house to go off the market and then back on because automatically the buyers think, Oh my gosh, there's something wrong with the house. So these are the kinds of things that we do. We actually are very, very careful with our negotiations and make sure that you're getting the best offer and top dollar. And if you'd like to find out more about how we get top dollar for our sellers, you can go to my website www.BarbHasTheBuyers.com or you can give us a call at (719) 301-1802
