(Put Buyer's Minds at Ease and More Cash in Your Pockets)
Photo Credit: Michael Tunnell
Emotions Run High in a Seller's Market
Here in the Gulf Beaches area of Tampa Bay, it's a Seller's market. Inventory is tight, and buyers learn quickly they need to jump on new listings and make lightning-fast offers. That should make it easy for sellers to get top dollar for any property. In a market like this, it would be unusual for a sales contract to unravel over some minor hiccup like a home inspection or appraisal, right?
Wrong. In our experience, this actually increases the chances of a sale falling through over a trivial issue. Why? Because the speed at which buyers have to move in this market gives them no time to grow an emotional bond with your property. Instead, the stress of acting quickly makes buyers feel cornered, defensive...even skittish. They overreact to perceived imperfections. "I'm uncomfortable moving so fast with so much money at risk," their thinking goes, "so this place had better be perfect." When your property turns out to have even the smallest, most fixable flaws, or the appraisal comes in just a little below their offer, buyers in this Seller's Market are more prone to head for the exits or demand a price adjustment!
A broken deal can hurt your property's selling price because it increases the "Days on Market" ("DOM") metric. The longer your home is on the market, the higher that number is and the more likely buyers are to assume something is wrong with it. The result: your list price drops or, worse, you can't sell at an acceptable price at all!
Achieve Top Dollar With a Nervous Buyer's Mindest
So, what do you do? Well, you could just sit back and hope the market cools off, but that wouldn't make sense. This is the time for you to maximize your selling price -- you just have to know how. You could obsess about finding any flaw in your property that might scare buyers. Yes, it's good to evaluate your property with a critical eye, but overdoing it could mean wasting money on improvements that don't bring a higher price.
Instead, try to empathize with the stressed-out buyer's mindset and ask yourself, "How can I help buyers develop a strong emotional bond with my property in the short time available to fall in love with it?" Here are two strategies we have found can make a difference:
- Effective Staging:
One critical mistake sellers make in this market is assuming they don't need to pay attention to aesthetics at all - since it will fly off the shelf no matter how it looks. Sellers also tend to over-value their own decorative taste and figure that if they love how their property looks, buyers will too. Your interior decorating was a personal choice you made for yourself, not for others. Decorating is not staging. We encourage you to step away from your own taste and let us help you stage your property so that the buyer's first impression is that they have walked into their own home, not someone else's.
- Smart Listing and Showing:
How a property is listed and marketed conveys important information to a buyer. Research suggests that the timing of when your home appears on the market, the number of photographs in the listing, precision with which it is priced, and even the number of people at an open house can affect buyer behavior, tapping into their desire for certainty and security in a turbulent buying process. We encourage our clients to consider these insights, and we show them how the smallest adjustment in presentation, or how showings are scheduled can help buyers feel safer making an offer.
Accept the facts: hiccups in the inspection and appraisal process happen, and they are mostly out of your control. After you've done what you can on that front, focusing your energies on creating the right environment for your potential buyers in a Seller's Market can go a long way to ensure that the offer you accept will be the price you achieve at the closing table.
Make the Most Money For Your Home With Blackburn Coastal Realty!
To learn more about how to take advantage of this Seller's Market, Contact Blackburn Coastal Realty today for a confidential consultation. Our marketing plan guarantees maximum exposure through pricing, staging, agent accessibility, and visibility, both online and offline. Our goal is the successful sale of your Gulf Beaches of Tampa Bay home, and at Blackburn Coastal Realty, we don't just achieve that goal - we go above and beyond it.
Positive comments are welcome below (especially from relatives who do not owe me money) and will be posted on our website. Negative comments will be posted on my dartboard office wall.
