Video Transcription below:

The hot sellers market of the last couple of years convinced a lot of people that all you needed to do to sell a home was put a sign in the yard and make sure it was on MLS. But the market has shifted and that’s no longer the case and we’re seeing this in homes that are aging on the market because they haven’t been properly marketed. In this video I’m going to go over what you need to do to make sure that your home sells for top dollar in a market where high buyer demand doesn’t exist naturally. To sell your home for top dollar in any market the truth is that there’s a two-step method step.

Number one is make sure that your home appeals to the highest number of buyers possible. Step number two is make sure that the maximum number of buyers possible know that your home is for sale. And the reason this method works is because higher demand equals higher price. This is why in the last couple of years when there was crazy high buyer demand you didn’t have to do much to sell your house because there were so many buyers that demand for your house just came naturally. But when there’s not high buyer demand in the market we have to create it. And the way we do that is actually by intentionally preparing your home to appeal to as many buyers as possible. This could include everything from painting it neutral colors to staging rooms so that they meet the function that we think the maximum number buyers are going to use that room as,  deep cleaning.

And on the other side of making it appeal to as many buyers as possible also want to make sure that it turns off as few buyers as possible. So this can be doing minor repairs the buyers might be sensitive to making sure that the experience of being in the home is pleasant. So eliminating smells, making sure that it’s a comfortable temperature, because in a seller’s market buyers feel a sense of urgency there’s a anxiety around getting a home, so therefore they’re willing to overlook a lot of things that might bother them otherwise. In a buyer’s market buyers feel rightly so that they can be choosy. Which means that even if they don’t like your house or any other house on the market they feel like they can wait till the right thing comes on. We’re not only competing with homes that are currently listed we’re competing with the homes that buyers feel might come on the market soon. We want to make sure that we make your home feel like the best possible option even out of what might be coming.

Once we’ve prepared your home through that prep work, which if you want to know more about the kind of prep work we do to get a home ready for sale you should go watch the video that’s linked above. Once we’re finished with all that prep work is when we take photos and videos. We want those photos and videos to capture your home at its absolute best. And this means not only getting professional photography but getting really good professional photography because I have seen photos really hurt the sale price of a home.

Here’s an example of this from the summer where my buyer actually got a great deal because the photos were a little too warm, the cabinets looked kind of orange. My buyer didn’t even really want to go see the house but I was like we’re in the area we should just go see it anyway. And sure enough when we got in the home the cabinets didn’t look orange in person. But how many other buyers didn’t have an agent who said “oh no we should just go see it anyway” and never came into the house. The analogy I like to use is it’s like online dating, once a buyer has swiped past your home they’re not coming back.

We want to make sure that that first impression we give online gets us that first date and gives us the showing in person. And that first day the showing is as good as possible because they’re not coming back for a second showing if they didn’t have a good experience the first time. So we’re through step one, we’ve fully prepared your home, it’s beautiful in person, it’s beautiful in photos and videos now we move on to the actual marketing of your home. And this is the difference that we see in a buyer’s market versus a seller’s market.

In a seller’s market a lot of times we barely had time to market the home. And we honestly didn’t worry about that that much because there were so many buyers searching the listing sites that we didn’t need to worry about enough buyers seeing it to get the kind of demand that we wanted to get the price that we wanted. But in a buyer’s market we need to make sure that we’re putting your home in front of as many potential buyers as possible. Which means we need to think beyond those listing sites. This is putting it into videos and posts on social, putting ads online that are directed to people that we think are likely to be interested in your home. Here in the mountains of Colorado this can mean that we target the people who are staying at the resort and are here on vacation. We want to make sure that we get it in front of any potential buyer even if they’re not actively searching right now. And this does take more effort than just putting it on MLS.

The number one mistake that I see a lot lot of sellers making right now which we can tell that they’re making this mistake because their properties are aging on market, is that they don’t think that this extra preparation and this extra marketing is necessary. They think that it’s like in 2020 and 2021 when you just rush to market if you want to sell quickly that like how fast you put it on the market is going to determine how fast it sells. And the example I have of this is actually a listing that I lost this fall because I told them I wouldn’t put their property online with photos that they had taken I told them no we need to have professional photos because we only as I’ve explained to you earlier in this video we only get one shot. But I lost that listing and they went with another realtor who put the listing on I’ll give him in four days which is very fast, but they put it on with photos that were from that Summer with the siding on the house hadn’t finished being painted. Which means that a lot of buyers probably looked at it and went oh well I don’t want to do deal with a house that’s not fully updated, you said it was updated it doesn’t look like it’s done being updated. And sure enough it’s been on market for six weeks without an accepted offer.

And that time on market literally costs you money. Homes in my neighborhood here in 2022, homes that sold in less than 30 days sold for 104% of their list price. And homes that took over 30 days to sell only sold for 96% of their original list price. And at the price of homes in our market that’s $120,000 on average. So instead of rushing to market and thinking that the sooner you put it out there the sooner it will sell, the truth is that you need to take the time up front to make sure it looks as good as possible that first time a buyer sees it. Because that is how we will actually get you an accepted offer faster. So if you’re considering selling in 2023 or 2024 make sure you’ve talked to a realtor as soon as possible so that they can talk to you about a plan to prepare your home to appeal to as many buyers as possible and get you on the market at the best time possible. Because when we’re not in a seller’s market these kinds of things matter. If you are considering selling or you just have questions about the real estate market in general please make sure that you like and follow this channel so you are notified when we put out new videos. And you can reach out to me Betsy Repaske on any social media platform at Betsy Repaske.

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