List Your Home For Sale
Hire a real estate agent you can trust to sell your house and negotiate on your behalf. This isn’t just about having someone around who gives tours of your house to strangers. Anyone could do that.
As a seller, you have high expectations of what your agent can do for you, as you should. Highly effective agents possess skills and qualities necessary to achieve great results.
Here are a few tips on how to pick which agent to hire:
Trust
The hardest part of choosing a real estate agent is knowing who is trustworthy. Maybe you have a someone close to you who sells houses, and you consider just using them because you don’t know anyone else you trust. There are several things to consider before hiring an agent. You want to trust him/her with an expensive investment, your house, to turn back around into money for you to invest elsewhere. This isn’t about choosing someone just because they’re in your neighborhood or your bloodline. Agents should conduct themselves with a set of principles that reveal integrity, hard work, enthusiasm, and determination. Those qualities in an agent will instill in you the feeling of calm and peacefulness knowing they have it handled.
Communication
Effective communication with a real estate agent is key to achieve the common goal of selling your house. Upon first meeting an agent, notice how well they speak and listen to you. You’ll want someone to listen to your needs and work hard toward getting your property sold. It’s never good if it’s difficult to get in contact with an agent or you feel like you have to hunt them down. There should be several different ways to contact the agent, whether it’s through a phone call, text, or email, and their response should be fairly quick.
Picture the ease of contact with a real estate agent. If he responds quickly to you, then you can assume he’ll respond quick to potential buyers as well.
Your agent communicates with several different people throughout the transaction of selling your home: the buyer’s real estate agent, title company, mortgage officer, attorneys, appraisers, inspectors, etc. All of these connected parties will also expect prompt attention. Success happens when everyone’s collectively working on the same goal: selling your house.
Customization
Do you prefer to receive notification via phone call, text, email, messages on Facebook, or swinging by their office? A real estate agent should cater to how you choose to communicate. Depending on why you are selling, what’s your motivation, and expected results, a customized plan should be made to move your house quickly. To do this, the real estate agent should visit the home to formulate the list price, describe comparable houses to yours, and explain the marketing details. Which brings us to the next point…
Marketing
Give yourself an advantage by hiring a top producing agent that uses professional photography, video, and social media marketing to sell your house. Once you and an agent establish the goal for selling your house, set-up a marketing plan. A great agent is not going to just place a sign in the front of your home and hope it sells. They should know how to write compelling information about your home to attract potential buyers in addition to creatively marketing it both online and offline to reach local and international buyers. A quality marketing plan includes professional photos, professional video tour, custom flyers, print ads, brochures, flyers, and search engine optimization. Listings should also be promoted on websites such as Youtube, Zillow, Trulia, Remax.com, Homes.com, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. Social media is more than just a pastime, it’s a legitimate way of promoting business and must be part of all real estate marketing plans. Today’s market is internet driven, and you can be located in the driver’s seat with an excellent real estate agent helping along the way.
Considering how much work you’ve put into your house, then preparing it to get ready to present to the buying world, you want an agent that is aggressive and proactive in its marketing. Otherwise all your hard work is useless.
Negotiations
In selling homes, there will be negotiations, and they begin the minute the home is listed for sale. A real estate agent must be equipped to handle negotiations that will benefit you. There are several different opportunities for an agent to negotiate on your behalf: a potential buyer submits an offer that is too low, requests assistance with closing costs, an inspection prompts the buyer to ask for repairs and/or credits, and any request that results in less money to the seller.
List your home for sale with Sarah Sawyers
You want an agent that works smarter than other agents. One who focuses their attention on you. One who’s experienced in selling real estate in Southwest Virginia. One who has reviews and testimonials available for you to read, not only on their own website, but also on third party websites, such as Trulia and Zillow. You want an impressive recent sales history. You want to experience a higher level of service.
Want to get started online? Take a minute to fill out the form below and tell me a little about your home and your motivation to sell.
I look forward to working with you.
Sarah Sawyers
276.762.9489