Shay Frazier

We are finally at Part IV of How to sell my house fast! For the last few days we have been dealing with the Four P’s that need to be in place in order for you to sell your home for the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time. So far we’ve discussed Price, Promotion, and Presentation. Today we are going to focus on the final “P”, Professional Handling.

Agents come a dime a dozen right? However choosing a GOOD agent should be important to you. Professional Handling probably seems like an unimportant or un-neccessary factor to help you sell your house fast. However, it is very important and can make all the difference. Believe it or not, the agent you chose to represent you in a transaction can make or break the deal. I can’t tell you the countless times I’ve had clients tell me that they had an offer on the table but couldn’t get in touch with their agent so the perspective buyer moved on. Or agents who don’t even submit all the offers to the seller? Or how about the ones who stick their sign in the yard of your overpriced home so that they can get free advertisement and leads? These are just some of the things that can happen if you don't have an agent who is capable of the professional handling during the listing of your home.

Please don't misunderstand, there are a lot of great real estate agents out there who serve their customers with integrity and truly have a desire to help them succeed in their goals. Make sure you take the time to hire the right Professional. Ask them how they will execute the proper pricing, marketing, and staging strategy for your home. Look at their website. Check their past customer testimonials, read their blogs. Most importantly, make sure they have a clear plan in place to sell your house fast!

Okay. So we are on Part 3 of How to sell my house fast. In this blog series, we have been going over the Four P's to ensure that your home sells quickly: Price, Promotion, Presentation, and Professional Handling. Today we are going to put the 3rd puzzle piece in place to get your home sold fast...Presentation.

I am sure everyone has heard the cliche "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." This is so true when you are trying to sell your home. Every time a buyer schedules an appointment to see your home, you must make sure that your home is clean, maintained, clutter free, and smelling good. Even though it seems petty, most buyer's really can't get over a dirty, stinky, or cluttered home even if these are easy fixes. Buyer's want to be able to picture themselves living in your home. If you want to sell your home for the most amount of money, in the shortest amount of time, presentation is everything. A little effort can pay off big!

Now, let me expand on cleanliness. If your home is dirty when a buyer sees it for the first time, you will leave the impression that it's not well maintained. Make sure your carpets are clean, wax/polish your floors, clean your closets, clean up cob webs, clean your windows, clean garages/attics/storage closets, clean your draperies, paint/clean dirty walls, polish and buff wood furniture, clean or resurface kitchen cabinets and make sure the kitchen and bathrooms are sparkling. If you have a pool, have that cleaned as well. It sounds like a lot, but if you do it now and maintain it, when your house sells you won't have much left to clean.

Make sure your home is maintained. If you haven't been maintaining it thus far, now is a good time to start. Here are some things you can do: clean out slow running drains, inspect your faucets, make sure your sink and bathtub stoppers hold water, check all interior/exterior wood surfaces for deterioration and re-paint if needed, check your roof for loose or missing shingles, check ceilings and attic for water leaks, replace your hvac filters, label the circuits on your electrical panels, keep lawn mowed, repair/re-paint fences, discard old/broken lawn furniture, clean out flower beds and add new flowers, prune and trim trees, sweep walkways. Every time a buyer finds something broken or poorly maintained, they lower their offer by much more than it would have cost for you to just fix it in the first place. Don't throw away thousands over something that can be fixed for $50.

Finally, keeping your home clutter free and smelling good also helps tremendously and it cost very little to do. Deoderize the entire house to remove unpleasant odors. Most of the deoderizing is accomplished in the cleaning phase. However you can go a step further by purchasing some Glade/Renuzit plug-ins and putting one in every room to maintain the freshness. For heavier odors like pet urine or smoke, you may have to consider a good carpet cleaning/replacement in addition to the other suggestions.

To keep your home clutter free, sell or store extra furniture. Your goal is to make the home look as open and spacious as possible. Too much furniture or clutter in one room can make it look cramped and lacking of storage. Also, sell or store knick knacks and figurines. I know that you love your beanie babies collection :-). However, not everyone does and the goal is to appeal to as many buyers as possible! Also, keep all counter space clutter free. In the bathrooms, buy a plastic container to put all your hair, face, and make up items in and store them in a concealed place. In the kitchen place all portable appliances in a concealed place as well, again storing away all knick knacks.

These are just some of the tips to help you sell your house fast using presentation. Your Realtor(R) can also help you with staging your home to sell. For more tips or questions click here.

Again stay tuned for the final piece to the puzzle to sell your house fast...Professional Handling.

Okay. So yesterday in Part I of "How to sell my house fast,"I mentioned the four P's of a successful home sell: Price, promotion, presentation, or professional handling of the job. When a home doesn't sell fast, usually one of these items are missing or inadequate. I gave you an explanation of the first P, Price yesterday. Today lets discuss Promotion.

You have to decide how you are going to promote or market your home to the public. It sounds a little easier than it really is. With the internet taking over, an ad in the local newspaper is costly and simply won't do. You have to make sure your home is being marketed to masses using several different marketing avenues. For instance the MLS, video (youtube), real estate websites, social media, your realtor's personal website, inter-office marketing, flyer blasting, property brochures, post cards, are just some of the ways that your home can be marketed to the public. According to the national association of Realtors(R) these are the the resources most used by perspective buyer:

• Internet: 74%
• Real estate agent: 69%
• Yard sign: 22%
• Open house: 12%
• Newspaper ad: 9%
• Home book or magazine: 6%

Source: 2010 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

Your Realtor(R) should have a marketing plan in place and they should be able to explain it to you. I use a 10-point marketing plan that uses a systematic approach to selling my client's home. My marketing plan provides my sellers the best chance of selling their home at the highest price in the shortest amount of time. Make sure that your Realtor(R) is not just sticking a sign in your yard to increase their own leads without working to promote your home. Find out exactly what their marketing or promotion plan is for your situation and make sure they execute it!

Stayed tuned for How to Sell Your Home Fast Part III...

"How to sell my house fast," is the question that every seller wants answered. Usually, there are only four factors that decide whether or not your house sells fast. Let's call them the four P's: Price, promotion, presentation, or professional handling of the job. If any of these 4 are out of line, you may experience a delay in selling your home. Today we will go over the first of the 4 "P's," Price.

Price: Statistics show that a house attracts the most interest within the first 30 days it's on the market. So if you were to wait 4 weeks before lowering your price, your showing activity would have already dropped off by almost 75%. So how do you increase your chances of pricing your home right from day 1? Get a Comparitive Market Analysis(CMA) done. The CMA will tell you what homes in your community have sold for within the last 6 months. It will also tell you what homes are currently up for sale so that you know your competition. Come back tomorrow for part II of "How to sell my house fast!"

So you are one step closer to owning your own home. You've gotten over the pre-approval hurdle. You've navigated the sea of homes and found what you were looking for and now you and the seller have agreed on the terms on the sell. Congrats! Now you can go and put a house full of furniture on your credit card right?....WRONG!!! Believe it or not, that's what many buyer's, especially first time buyer's, do once they've secured the home they want. But even though you've already gotten over several hurdles in the buying process, still more remain. If you want to make it to the closing table, here are the do's and don'ts when buying a home.

1. Don’t use your social security # for anything.
2. Don’t change your job.
3. Don’t make any major purchases credit card or other. Yes. This means no car purchases, furniture, etc.
4. Don’t apply for any new credit or credit cards.
5. Don’t change or close bank accounts or make large deposits or transfers that are undisclosed.
6. Don’t miss any payments that could affect your credit score.
7. Don’t increase your credit card debt. This will change your debt to income ratios.
8. Don’t co-sign on anything for anybody. Sister will have to get that new car on her own!
9. Don’t spend money you have saved for closing. Your bank account balances will be checked again right before closing. If you don’t have sufficient funds for closing, your loan will be denied/delayed.
10. Always tell your Mortgage Broker or Agent about any possible problems or changes to your income, debt, or credit.
11. Do give your mortgage broker/lender the necessary documents as soon as they ask for them to avoid delays and possible penalties.

Following these guidelines on the do's and don't when buying a home, will help make the process smoother and less stressful for you! Click here to search for your next home!