Advice on Selling Hard to Move Properties

At the beginning of this decade, you could sell your home without even putting it in MLS. My, how things have changed. Now you practically have to beg a buyer to make an offer. If your property isn't generating interest, what can you do?

When a real estate market goes cold, it can seem like there are no homes being sold at all. This is incorrect. There is just a lot of competition for the attention of a small pool of buyers. To get their attention, you need to do some unique things.

The first step is to play up your neighborhood. Location, location, location. It is the first rule of real estate and everyone knows it. So, make sure you list the attributes of your neighborhood when putting your marketing together.

When selling your neighborhood, you also have to account for the problem areas. You know, that one neighbor. A simple strategy is to offer to pay for their landscaping and so on. You'll recover the money on the sale of your home.

Step back from your pricing. Look around the neighborhood. Are there comparable homes listed for less, even a few thousand dollars less? If so, you need to cut your price. You don't need to beat the fixer upper on the block, just those similar to your home.

Obviously, the comparable homes in a neighborhood are not all the same. If yours is slightly better, pricing at the lower end of the listing range can be hard. Do it! Most sellers will group the homes together and not notice your fine points.

What if you just can't bear to lower the price? Are you out of luck? Not necessarily. If there is some definite reason you should be priced higher than comparable homes, then it is okay. You absolutely must emphasize this in your marketing material, however.

If your price isn't low, you can try to make up for it with favorable terms for your buyers. Specifically, offer to help them by carrying a second note on the property or providing some other nugget that will make them bite on the property.

An obvious, but often missed, final step is to make small improvements to the property that carry big weight. Landscaping is usually cheap and can radically change the look of a property.

Besides landscaping, there are other minor tasks that can have a big impact. Clean your driveway and organize the garage. Cut back plants in front of windows to maximize lighting and views. Walk the house and just make little changes to the details.

Article Source: http://www.myaddirectory.com

Hal James writes about issues faced by FSBO sellers for FSBOAmerica.org, where you can get a free one month listing to sell your home by owner and get more real estate tips. Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.

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