Selling your home in a buyer’s market.

By rerockstar • July 26th, 2009

Welcome Home San Antonio.

It’s everywhere you look.

I’m sure you’ve heard the news – “it’s a great time to buy.” According to national and local statistics, buyer’s have competitive advantage over sellers at the moment. This means that selling your home in today’s market can be tough. It doesn’t have to be. By working together as a team, we can get your home sold – no matter what the market indicators are telling us.

The theory of the market.

Some ask, what is a “buyer’s market” exactly? Whether it’s a seller’s market or a buyer’s market, it all is based off the laws of supply and demand. If there is a large inventory of homes on the market (supply), it is considered a buyer’s market. The demand for homes is inversely proportionate to the supply of homes on the market. Basic supply and demand. A seller’s market is simply the reverse: the demand for homes (number of buyers actively searching) is greater than the inventory (supply). There are other factors that can affect the basic behaviors of supply and demand (weather, local politics, school time, military PCS, etc.), but overall the law remains quite simple.

So how do you sell in a buyer’s market?

Think of competition. Your neighbor’s house is for sale, the guy across the street has his home for sale, there’s a pesky foreclosure down the road from you – everywhere you look there’s a for sale sign. Inventory levels are high. How do you find the buyer for your home?

Although nothing will guarantee you a sale, there are several things you should be thinking about to get your home sold. It only takes one buyer to buy a house. You need to find them and make them ignore all the other choices out there. Make them stop looking at homes and say “this is the one.” A few important steps will help you no matter which way the market is leaning.

1. Choose a Realtor® that will get the word out. There’s many theories on how to get the word out, but no one can deny that the internet is king. Exposure is the name of the game. Spam is not. Some agents think that sending out a million emails to people they don’t know is “exposure.” Spamming agents and local residents will only get your listing tossed in the “trash.” I get tons of them everyday. I don’t read most of them (I read them from agents I know, just to see what they’re up to). As a local San Antonio Realtor® I have access to the San Antonio MLS which allows me to search all the listed houses on the market. I can look at the ones off the market when they’re sold or pulled from the market. I don’t need anyone to show me their listing – if it’s in the MLS and I need to find a house in that area that meets my client’s needs, I will find it.

2. Price. You’ve heard it before, but I’ll keep saying it ’til I’m blue in the face. Price rules over all. Even if your house is made of 24k gold with Italian marble doorknobs, if it’s priced too high, you’re not going to sell it. Price has become even more important recently with appraisers fighting value on every home (they took a beating for the housing market collapse and are being regulated much more today). If you need more money out of your home’s sale, you may want to rethink selling it. A bad price can label a home with the dreaded “overpriced” stigma very quickly – and that stigma is hard to wash off. Priced right a home can quickly enter into multiple offers and a strong negotiating position for the sellers.

3. Clean. Fix. Stage. Shine. Buyer’s aren’t looking for a project. They want perfection in a buyer’s market. We all know no home is perfect, but they’re still trying to find it. Make your house as perfect as it can be. Look at your home from someone else’s perspective. You love your home, but take a step back and look at it in a critical light. What needs improvement? What is broken? What would I say if I wanted to buy this home and hadn’t been living in it. Where is the extra special something that will make a buyer love this home. In a buyer’s market, if House A and House B are the same floor plan at the same price, but House B had their carpets cleaned and their floors waxed; House B is going to sell a lot quicker. Be House B.

4. Be prepared for negotiations. Buyers are asking for everything and hoping to come up with the best terms they can. Most agents are shooting for the moon, knowing they won’t get everything, but hoping they’ll get as much as they can. Do not turn down any offer. Counter it, no matter how ridiculous the offer may be. Now is not the time to be emotional, it’s time to be rational and logical. Make sure your agent knows what you want and will accept, but make sure they don’t reveal your position during negotiations (I just had an agent tell me way more than they should have in negotiations and I used it to my clients’ advantage). It may be a buyer’s market, but you don’t want to give anyone the upper hand.

5. Be prepared for the buyer’s offer to fall through. Don’t pack until the transaction is about to close. Buyer’s are running into more snags these days towards the end of closing. Homes not appraising, financing falling through, changes at their workplace (layoffs being a rough hit to take) – all of these can happen at anytime. Try to keep offers coming in and have your agent keep track of all interested parties. If it looks like it’s not going to happen, your Realtor® should spring to action to see where those other buyers have gone.

6. Don’t play into the “doom and gloom.” Confidence and positive thinking are great influences in anyone’s life. This applies to real estate too. Thinking everything is hopeless and that your home will never sell will only influence everything around you. I’ve seen it happen first hand. Seller’s stop caring about their home when they feel helpless – the cleaning stops, their cheerful smile goes away, and the home shows it. Don’t let it affect you. Easy to say I know, but harder to do. Just do your best to “keep your chin up” and get your home sold as soon as possible.

All of these items are based on my real life recent experiences as a San Antonio Realtor®. One of my listings sold in under 90 days for full price. One of them sold in eight days with multiple offers for more than full price. Your home can sell in a buyer’s market. Thinking of selling your home today? Call me to schedule an appointment to sit down and discuss your options, your home’s current value in today’s market, and what I as a RE/MAX Access agent can do for you to get your home sold, even in today’s buyer’s market.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...


Email This Post Email This Post   Print This Post Print This Post

Comments(4) Housing Market, Sellers

Comments

By BrandonNo Gravatar on May 3rd, 2010 at 2:29 pm

Nice article. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve pulled a quote from your article for a piece we just published on U.S. Housing News. Take care. ~Brandon
.-= Brandon´s last blog ..How to Sell a House in a Buyer’s Market (i.e., 2010) =-.

By rerockstarNo Gravatar on May 4th, 2010 at 7:50 am

Brandon – Thanks for the note about the quote. I would appreciate a link back to the original article from the section with my quote in it.

Trackbacks

 

Leave a Comment

« | Home | »