6 Golden Rules to sell your house fast

There’s always reasons why people want to sell their house, it could be:

• take profit
• reduce your paper losses or financial difficulties
• multiply your assets (if your sales proceed exceed 500k, it’s time for assets multiplication. i.e. convert 1 property into 2 or 3 properties)
• move to a bigger place, a better location, or change in lifestyle (HDB to Condo)
• and many other reasons

Sometimes during the sales process, after repeated failed viewings for  2-3 months – a seller can get frustrated and forgot your bigger goals and the reasons behind it. This could be very dangerous, which results in less careful in the presentation of your unit and getting stubborn in negotiating with buyers.

Rule 2- Price to sell, not price to sit

The single most important factor to consider when selling a house is pricing the house correctly. You don't want to overprice the house because you will lose the freshness of the home's appeal after the first few weeks of showings. After one month, demand and interest wane.

Pricing is all about supply and demand. It's part art and part science, some agents are much better at figuring out how to price your home than others. Experience matters.

Methods to derive the right price:

The most widely used tools to value your home now is through SRX x-value system, click here to get instant home value: http://srx.sg/cVwK

You can use this as a guide, however your pricing may not strictly follow the figure if you think your house have competitive edge over your competitors. For example, top-notch renovation, better facing, more efficient layout configuration, etc.. There are many other factors which you need to take note when decide on the final figures.

• How much your competitors asking: Look at every similar home that was or is listed in the same neighborhood (within 500m radius), similar age, size and amenities. Pay attention to neighborhood dividing lines and physical barriers. For example, Identical homes across the street from each other can vary by $100,000 if they belong to different district, perceptions and desirability have value.
• Make note of the days on market. (Your agent should be able to advise you on this) If you see average days on market more than 60 days, you will know roughly how long your property get sold. Be prepared to lower your expectations if you genuinely want a quick sale.
• Price it to be found in the web searches. Most buyers will have a certain budget when they search for property. For example, if a buyer’s budget is up to $1M, and your property is listed at $1.05M, you will miss this segment of buyers.
• Market dependent pricing: You need to have clear view of the direction and speed at which the market is moving. Whether it’s going up or coming down, price your house ahead of it. In a seller's market, when there is little inventory and many buyers, you can ask more than the last comparable sale and likely get it. However, try not to get overly optimistic because one or two high price transactions, as buyers will look at overall pricing as a guide and not based on the outliers.

Listen carefully to your agent’s pricing strategy. It’s their job to know what works and doesn’t. And as with any strategy, be prepared to have an ongoing discussion about pricing with your real estate agent.

Now you are clear on your motivation and you have figured out the right price to sell, the next step is to making sure your home looks presentable to attract the buyers to give you a genuine offer. The first impression counts! To get the best price possible – your property needs to give to potential buyers – the best impression possible.

In general, the list of things that you should do are:

• Pack and clean up your house. Remove all personal items such as family photos and your favorite collections. Make the house look neat and neutral.
• Fix the eyesores, broken faucets, peeling paint, and any kind of leakage
• Change lightings if too dark
• Home staging (consider it if you want to sell your house above market price, unless your house is already in show room condition)

Rule 4 - Identify your potential target market 

Have you identified who are potential target market of your home?

In the market, there exists many sub-segments of buyers who are looking out for a property to purchase.

• young couples
• retiree
• en-bloc buyers
• HDB upgraders
• investors
• singles
• small families
• big families and many others.

By identifying who the target market is – it allows for more careful and precise marketing.

Once you have identified your target market, you can now plan your marketing activities which focus on reaching out to your target segment.

There are 3 things you need to do at this stage:

• Set your marketing budget (refer to below table) if you are DIY seller, or leave this to your agent if you are hiring one.

• Get your listing online.

Majority of buyers today are searching property through internet, hence you need to get your listing noticed on various online property portals – Property Guru captures bulk of the on-line searchers (maybe 60-70%) along with other popular sites, including SRX, ST Property, 99.co, the edge properties, etc.. (around 30%-40%).

Take some nice photos of your house, engage professional photographers for Virtual Tour or Videos will make your listing stand out from your competitors.

If your target market is retirees, however, you may want allocate more marketing budget to newspaper advertising as these groups still prefer papers.

• Craft marketing message that attract your potential buyers and highlight as many USP (unique selling points) of your units as possible.

There is no perfect unit. Flaws will always exist and buyers will try to find certain faults. A good real estate agents are able to highlight all the good points that outweigh the flaws. With defined target segment, they can bring buyers attention to what values the most to them. For example, for couple looking for a good school, their top priority is always the 1km radius property near the school.

Rule 6 - Ready for the Show

If you have done all the above 5 steps right, you should start receiving phone calls to ask for viewings.

When there’s an open house, take your family out. If you’re the direct seller, you can stay but the other members need to vacate the premises for that period of time. It’s difficult for the potential buyers to imagine himself living there when the whole family hanging around in the space.

It’s advisable to turn on all the lights, the fans, the air cons or even some background music to set the atmosphere right. You want the buyers to feel comfortable and relax. The longer your buyers stay inside your house, the higher chance they will make an offer to you.

Detach yourself from the memories that you had over the years with your house. Understand if the buyer wants to demolish the feature walls you love so much in your living room, you can not overly influence his decision. Similarly, don’t get offended if the buyer quotes you a low-ball figure. When we are buyer, we will do the same to get the best deal if possible. Counter with your offer and take it from there.

I hope this article will benefit to all potential sellers. If you are having difficulty to sell on your own or facing challenges with your current real estate agents, feel free to call me for a 2^nd opinion.

My goal is to help you sell your house at the right time at the right price so that you can start the new chapter of your life!