By Steve Levine, President of Steve Levine Inc., and an agent for REMAX Professional Associates
What if I could only give you one series of tips, to get top dollar for your home? Well, I would have to say that the best piece of advice I have always given my clients has been not to “rush” the home onto the market instead of taking the time to prepare it properly. For this, a pre-marketing team is an essential value-added service for an agent to bring to the table. Over the last two months alone, I’ve spent more time and energy with my pre-marketing teams – getting a few homes ready to hit the market – than anything else, but the results have been spectacular…with the first one hitting the market and selling for $40K more than the seller even expected. Now that’s delivering results.
Speaking for myself, I’ve spent years researching which things have the best return on investment, and assembling a team of professionals to assist us with all aspects of pre-sale preparation. By bringing in my team of pre-marketing folks, I’m getting homes to hit the market as near to perfect as possible. After all, the better job we can do in preparation, the higher price you’ll ultimately command for the property, and that’s a win-win for everyone.
That would seem like a logical approach that any rational agent might take, but I can assure you that it’s not. I was out one day showing homes to some buyers, and of the three homes we looked at, not one of them was in “show condition.” On two of them, the roofs were literally falling off, with pieces on the ground in the yard. We saw a deck that was unsafe to walk on, and a $600K home with ripped and stained carpets. Why in the world would one be listed in a highly competitive market without taking the few days to get things fixed up and ready? In contrast, that same week, I had three of my listings, one which we’d spent two to three weeks preparing, that hit the market and achieved multiple over full price offers. This isn’t rocket science here, just common sense.
Rest assured, the key is not to spend $5K updating a home, to try and get $3K or $4K more for the property…or even spending $5K to get $5K back. On the other hand, if we can spend $2K on a handful of select things, and get $10K back, I would do that all day long…and that’s exactly what’s been happening here in our marketplace time and time again, as my successful sellers will attest.
To try and help people understand the concept better, I put together the latest in my series of free reports. Report #6 is “The Top Pre-Marketing Tips to Achieve a Top Dollar Sale.” If you’d like a copy of that one, or any of the other five free reports about maximizing the value of your home, just email [email protected] and I will email them over for you. Please include in your email your name and which town you live in, as some of the reports were town-specific.
Steve Levine is President of Steve Levine, Inc., and an agent for REMAX Professional Associates. He has been ranked 10 times as the top REMAX Agent in the six-state New England region, and can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 508-735-4663.
