How to be the next sold home in Phoenix?

For reasons that can only be your own, you’ve decided that you want to sell your Phoenix area home.  Perhaps it’s a job change, or a school change, or you want to live closer to family, or perhaps further away.  Whatever your motivation, you want to sell your home.

If you’ve decided to sell, the number 1 piece of advice I can offer you in today’s tough market is to take that decision one step further:  Decide to be the very next sale.  By this I mean get really motivated and make the decision that you want to not only sell your home, but you want to be the very next sale.  Because right now, with less than 3000 sold homes last month, and almost 50,000 homes on the market, it takes this type of dedication and commitment to selling to be successful. 

So, how can you assure yourself that you’ll be the very next sale? 

First, your home has to be able to overcome any objection.  It needs to be compelling.  To be compelling, it needs to be in perfect condition.  If a buyer walks through your home and finds something as minor as a burned out light bulb, it’s an objection that 10 other homes in your neighborhood won’t have.  The interior and exterior need to be staged perfectly.  And of course every system in the home must work.  A listing that offers credits for repairs not yet completed will likely languish on the market.

Next, your home has to be offered at a “can’t miss” price.  What’s can’t miss?  For starters, let’s consider an asking price less than the last sale.  That’s right.  If the last home on your street sold 30 days ago for $250,000, then your asking price should be $248,750.  It absolutely should not be $260,000, with “room for negotiation”.  But keep in mind that this can’t miss price needs to be lower than every other home currently on the market that you are competing with.  You want your home to stand out and nothing stands out better than being the lowest price.  So if there is another smart seller on your street, that’s already at $248,750, you have only 1 choice if you want to be the next sale:  be noticeably lower than them.

And just to be clear, $248,750 is for a home that’s “perfect”.  For every area of your home that you can’t declare, “this is perfect”, start reducing your asking price in big chunks.  With an aggressive asking price, we can be a lot firmer during negotiations.  But best of all, you’ll attract every possible buyer to see your home, because it’s offered at a price that’s affordable to the largest range of buyers.

Ok, your home is perfect and the asking price is can’t miss, now what?  Well naturally you need to hire the right real estate agent.  The right agent will help you with those first 2 things, but will help you even more with the next and most important step, negotiating for success.  I can think of a few, but there’s one that springs to mind first.  What is negotiating for success?  That’s a contract with terms and a price that both the buyer and seller agree to, that actually closes escrow.  For the first time in a number of years, financing has become challenging, so this agent will also need to do some work to ensure that any potential buyer is qualified to buy your home.

And that’s all it will take to be the next sale:  Perfect property condition, combined with the best price going, and the right agent that knows how to negotiate for success.  It sounds easy, doesn’t it? 

If you have a home on the market today, that has been inactive for 90 days or more, and you are wondering why it hasn’t sold, look over these keys for success and honestly evaluate whether your home has every advantage working in its favor.  If your home isn’t currently listed for sale, but you’ve contemplated listing it for sale, evaluate your personal motivations and compare those with this description of what it will take to sell.  Are you motivated enough to be the next sale?

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