5 Tips To Get The Best Price When Selling Your Property

For whatever reason, if you have to sell your property as soon as possible, don’t panic! It’s easy to be overwhelmed but the best way forward is to set out a plan for selling and work through it step by step. Don’t be deterred if the word on the street is that ‘it’s a bad time to sell’; just keep the following tips in mind and selling your property quickly, and for a good price, will be achievable.

There are five common mistakes that homeowners make when wanting to sell their place quickly. I am going to tell you the mistakes then give you some advice about how to overcome the error:

1. Constantly reducing the price, little by little
When prospective buyers see a price dropping regularly it spells ‘desperation.’ Before you list your property do your own research to find out its value. Check out what the prices are of similar places in the area. The most inspected places on the market are those that are the cheapest and also the newest listed. By placing your property at the top of the list in both categories you will have yours sold in no time at all.

2. Hiring the Real Estate agent charging the least commission
To get the quick results that you are after it is essential that you hire a top real estate agent. Ask your friends, family and colleagues who they would suggest and who they have used. If you can employ a professional agent who can negotiate you another $15,000 on your selling price for $3,000 more commission, you are better off than using an agent who will ‘give your place away.’ Look for an agent who you can communicate with, who is prepared to go that extra mile for you, who has drive, commitment and will guide you through the selling process at a comfortable pace.

3. Waiting for the market to improve
Waiting does not ensure a better selling price. There are hundreds of home owners who do not need to sell quickly and they will be coming on the market each and every day. You will always have competitors so if you have to sell do it now and do it with care and conviction. Who says the market is going to better in the next year or two anyway?

4. Listing your property before you have staged it
One of the absolute worst mistakes is to present your place to buyers when it has not been cleaned and spruced up for sale. It is called ‘staging your place’ and can make an enormous difference to the amount you get offered. Clean out the junk – sell it or store it. Touch up any areas in the property that are showing wear and tear and get the garden regenerated, especially in the front. Potential buyers are there to look at your place and how their family could live in it, not at your belongings, so have as few personal belongings around as you need to have to live in reasonable comfort while it is on the market. Tidy the bedrooms and get rid of any excess furniture so that all the rooms look larger.

5. Consider every offer
A common mistake for owners, especially those needing the highest possible sale price, is to turn down the first offer. In selling there is a saying that ‘the first offer is the best offer’ and if you talk to a salesperson in any job where price gets negotiated, they will tell you that the statement is true in the majority of cases. You will get a lot of lookers in the first couple of weeks and if you are still on the market after that the number will drop quite dramatically. If an offer comes in during the first week or two, sellers are tempted to turn it down thinking the inspection rate will stay the same, but of course it does not. So, seriously consider every offer, especially the first.

(article originally appeared on realestate.com.au)