5 More home selling science and psychology secrets that will make you big money! (Part 3)

When it comes to selling your home, everyone wants to walk away with the highest profit possible. Fortunately, there is a whole hidden science to selling a home, based on mountains of data, copious independent research, and the psychology of perceptions and human behavior. When you list your home for sale with The Alfano Group, you not only have hard work and great service at your disposal, but strategies and tactics developed over decades of successfully representing home sellers. 

We'll share more and more of these home selling tips so stay tuned, and of course contact us if you want to find out how to make the most money when you sell your home!

1. Your greatest marketers could be your neighbors!

Your neighbors are one of your best assets to help market and sell your home, yet rarely utilized. But it makes perfect sense to spread the word about your home hitting the market to those live around you, as they have a vested interest in choosing a great new neighbor. In fact, if you go knock on their door (or have us do it) and let them know the details of the sale and even provide them flyers or brochures, they’ll do a great job telling their friends and coworkers, providing a boost of serious and motivated buyers.

They’ll actually thank you for briefing them before the listing even officially hits the market, and will hustle to generate interest. In the same vein, you can also spread the word about your for sale home to neighborhood associations, local schools, and other community organizations.

2. Personalize your listing with a quick introduction video.

When buyers are in a competitive offer situation, Realtors often advise them to write a personal letter about how much they love the house and a little bit about themselves. In some cases, it can absolutely sway the sellers into accepting their offer, as the personal touch balances out all of the contracts and numbers inherent in a real estate transaction.

The same tactic can work for sellers if they put together a very short (maybe one minute or less) video about their family and their home. Talking candidly about how much they loved the house, the great memories they had there, how they loved the neighborhood and schools, their favorite local parks and restaurants, and giving a valid reason why they’re selling and moving can all be part of a seller’s video.

It’s not the information in the video per se that will make a difference to buyers, but psychology shows that it will humanize the listing, allowing it to stand out from the pack and establishing positive feelings of trust and familiarity. Ask us more about what would be appropriate for a great seller video and how we can use it on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. to help market your home.

3. Focus on low-cost home improvements in kitchens and bathrooms.

To fix up or not fix up, that is the question for many homeowners before they list their home. Research shows that it doesn’t pay to undertake huge and expensive home improvements before listing your home, unless they are essential or safety concerns, like leaking roofs or faulty electrical systems. But additions, adding a pool, remodeling every room, and other significant upgrades will probably only yield you 20-40 cents on the dollar once the home sells.

Instead, data shows that the wisest investment is to put resources into smaller, cosmetic improvements into your kitchen and bathrooms. Repainting the walls, replacing dated appliances with stainless steel, modernizing light fixtures and possible retiling floors in the kitchen all keep the budget under control but will be a huge selling point when buyers walk through. In fact, that will yield an ROI of 85% or higher, and buyers pay most attention to the kitchen and master bathroom when making a first impression of a home.

4. Impress buyers (and their agents) by having your inspections all done.

There is a lot of uncertainty in any real estate transaction, with inspections, appraisals, disclosures, and contingency periods all reason for a buyer to get cold feet – or choose to renegotiate. But one great way to relieve that uncertainty from the get-go is for sellers to get all of their inspections done before they even list the home. Potential buyers (and their agents, especially!) will love reading in your listing description that the house has a clear pest report, a roof certification, a completed home inspection with the appropriate fixes already done, and maybe even a current appraisal.

Not only will it eliminate any surprises during the transaction so it’s psychologically comfortable and safe, it signals that you are serious and ready to close. By having all of your inspections completed ahead of time, you’ll attract a better, more motivated breed of buyer that won’t waste your time or nickel and dime you on every fee and issue that comes up. This strategy works especially well for higher end and luxury listings, but for all sellers it ultimately saves a lot of time since the deal can now close as soon as their loan clears, saving days or weeks, and we all know that time is money when you’re selling your home!

5. Have your home professionally staged.

For any high end or luxury home, enlisting the services of a professional stager is a must. But is it really worth it? If you’re worried about the cost or inconvenience, consider these statistics from Realtor Magazine and The International Association of Home Staging Professionals:

95% of professionally staged homes sell faster than non-staged homes.

Homes that are staged stay on market only half as long as homes that aren’t.

Staged homes sell for an average 11% higher purchase price than non-staged homes.

Only 4% of homes in high price brackets are staged (which means two things: some real estate agents aren’t doing their jobs correctly, and your luxury home will stand out like a diamond in a pile of coal when you do stage it.)

The median dollar value for home staging services is only $675 (but higher based on more work and the nicer the home/higher the listing price),

But the great news is that surveys show that staging generates a Return On Investment of 8-10% when the home sells

With those benefits and financial returns, can you afford NOT to stage your home?

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If you'd like to check out more home selling secrets from The Alfano Group, try these past blogs: 

http://thealfanogroup.blogspot.com/2016/04/home-selling-science-psychology-and.html

http://thealfanogroup.blogspot.com/2016/05/home-selling-science-psychology-and.html

15 Home-selling mistakes that could cost you a lot of money. (Part 2)

Your house is probably the largest financial investment you’ll make in your lifetime, and therefore selling it should be handled with diligence, care, and planning. But too often, homeowners make the same common mistakes when putting their home up for sale, ultimately costing them tens - if not hundreds -of thousands of dollars.

But if knowledge is power, then by identifying these most common home selling mistakes we can empower you to make better decisions and avoid them, ensuring you maximize your profit when selling, starting with selecting the right real estate agent to represent you.

In part one of this blog we covered the first 7 mistakes homeowners make when putting up their house for sale, and here are the next 8:

Mistake #8: Becoming too emotional

We understand that your house is your home, where you probably raised your family and have many years and memories invested. But selling your home should be viewed as a business transaction, not personal. By taking emotion out of the process as much as possible, you’ll make clear and logical decisions in your best interest. Ask any successful businessperson and he or she will tell you that emotion, fear, anger, ego, and personal feelings end up costing you money!

Mistake #9: Not listening to the market

When we list a home, we first run a comprehensive market analysis for the seller, showing the hard data about what similar homes in the same area are selling for, as well as what other competition is on the market. We’ll make our best professional recommendation on the listing price, but the final decision is up to the homeowner. No matter where you set your initial listing price, pay attention to what the market is telling you – what the data says. Ignoring market data and instead making decisions on emotion or hope for gain can be counterproductive and cost you in the long run.

Mistake #10: Failing to think like a buyer

Instead of thinking, “This is what I want for my home,” and “I want to sell at this price,” try to put yourself in a potential buyer’s situation. Imagine yourself hitting the home buying circuit on a busy Saturday and how you would view each listing. For instance, buyers usually start from the bottom of their price range and then work their way up, and as a home seller, realize they will be viewing a lot of other listings in the same price range as your home – your competition. Understanding the process from a consumer’s perspective will help you maximize your home’s presentation and strategically set your price to get the highest and best offers!

Mistake #11: Not having your home staged

If you are trying to sell your luxury or high-end home, enlisting the help of a professional stager is a must. Yes, you’ll have to spend a small amount of money up front, but it will offer huge returns when your home sells. In fact, national statistics show that staged homes sell in an average of 13.8 days while non-staged homes sell in 30.9 days, and staged homes sell for an average 17% higher sales price, offering a 586% return on investment.

Still not convinced? In a recent survey, 9 out of 10 potential buyers said they had trouble visualizing how a completely unfurnished home could appear when furnished, and 81% of buyers report a stage home is easier to visualize the property as their future home.

Mistake #12: Not researching your competition

Buyers have a lot of homes to choose from, so before you even price your home or put a For Sale sign in the front year, your real estate agent should sit down with you and go over a market analysis thoroughly. Every home that is currently for sale within your greater geographic area and with similar dimensions and features (for instance, homes with 3 or more bedrooms in Folsom,) should be considered your competition. This is the same approximate list your pool of potential buyers will be looking at, so make sure you’re listing is strategically priced and positioned correctly against that competition.

Mistake #13: Not marketing your listing correctly

What sells homes these days? A great home at the right price is WHY a home sells and that never changes, but the HOW is something far different. Research shows that certain marketing strategies significantly impact home sales – and pay the most dividends for the seller. These include taking a good number of professional-quality photos, staging the home, making sure it’s easily accessible for any potential buyer’s agents, exposure through community and professional networking, and especially a great online presentation that includes a stellar MLS listing, web, email, and social media promotion. Marketing correctly through digital platforms is essential these days, especially with higher end listings, considering that 95% of luxury homebuyers are active and engaged on social media and 90% of luxury buyers start their search for a home online.

Mistake #14: Not consulting your tax advisor and other financial advisors

Some of the best tax breaks you’ll ever realize are tied to real estate, especially with capital gains exclusions and the ability to do a 1030 exchange rollover to avoid profit from some home sales becoming taxable events (especially with investment properties.) However, you never want to sell your home (or make any big financial decisions, for that matter) without consulting your CPA or tax planner. Since an additional hundreds of thousands of dollars (or millions) of income you potentially might have to declare would surely throw your tax returns out of whack, failing to get expert counsel could potentially be the biggest home selling mistake you could ever make.

Mistake #15: Using the wrong Realtor

The home seller ultimately makes the important decisions about pricing, listing, staging, showing, and marketing their home. But smart sellers enlist the help of the best real estate professional possible to give them great advice, and it all starts with finding the right real estate agent. Too often, homeowners choose a Realtor just because they know the person socially or they bump into them at an open house, but you should really use a local expert who specializes in listing homes similar to yours. Interview the best candidates and ask tough questions, while also gauging whom you feel good about since you’ll be communicating and working closely with that person. If you follow this process, you’ll end up with the best possible real estate agent to help you sell your home and maximize your profits through a smooth transaction.

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The Alfano Real Estate Group would love the chance to compete for your business and earn your trust. When you’re ready to sell your home, so feel free to contact us any time with questions.

Home selling science, psychology and secrets that will make you huge money! (Part 2)

In part oneof this blog, we introduced the hidden science to selling a home, based on mountains of data, copious independent research, a combined centuries of home selling experience, and the psychology of perceptions and human behavior. Based on this information, we’ve extracted the best tips, secrets, and scientific principles that will help you sell your home for top dollar. Here 10 more home selling secrets, and contact us if you have any questions or need help selling your home!

1. First impressions

Just how important are first impressions when a potential buyer looks at your home? Research shows that 80% of all prospective buyers know within a seconds if a home is right for them. It’s probably happened to you, too – that feeling that a home has the “it” factor when you first walk in the front door. Based on that data, it’s important that home sellers focus on enhancing the elements of that first impression. Start with the curb appeal of how your home looks from the street when first pulling up, the walkway to the front door, the entryway itself, and of course the foyer and first impression when they walk inside. Luckily, fresh paint, flowers, landscaping, air fresheners, new lighting, etc. are all relatively inexpensive ways to boost your home’s first impression.

2. Light and mirrors

Small rooms or spaces that frequently lack natural light or sit in shadows can be a real turn off for prospective buyers, as they’ll gauge them as smaller than the actual square footage, unappealing, or downright uninviting. To help enhance a room’s brightness and openness, make sure you don’t have heavy curtains, but window coverings that allow as much light in as possible. Mirrors that are strategically set up to reflect natural light during certain times of day are also effective for re-shaping homebuyer perceptions.

3. Smoking is bad for you (and your sale)

If you’re a smoker and regularly lit up inside your house, selling can be a big challenge. Even if you can’t whiff even a trace of cigarette or cigar, homebuyers can almost instantly sniff the remnants in your house – making them cringe, and probably walk right back out the front door. Since smoke particles can be 1/1000 the width of a human hair, smoke tends to permeate into walls, wallpaper, curtains, rugs and flooring, and even the heat and air system, and is hard to eradicate. It’s not enough to open the windows and place a lot of air fresheners in the house, but there are ways you can permanently treat the smoke particles. Replace heat and air filters, steam clean carpets, repaint walls with special odor-blocking primer, thoroughly wash curtains and bed coverings, and even change light bulbs. Then, place bowls of vinegar around the house for three days (you can also try this with baking soda). Once you open the windows after that, the vinegar should extract the cigarette particles and send them right outdoors!

4. Access should be easy

Is it easy for a buyer to view your home? And just as importantly, is it easy for a buyer’s real estate agent to set up a showing and prioritize your home as they go out house hunting? Research and anecdotal evidence shows that if a home is hard to get into, certain rooms are off limits, dangerous pets are home, has restrictive showing hours, is only available by appointment, or has other special instructions, it will probably go to the bottom of the stack of homes they are looking at that day. Of course your own convenience and privacy as a homeowner is first on your mind, but if you’re serious about getting top dollar for your home, you’ll prioritize the buyer’s experience and make it easy to display “your product.”

5. Clean out storage - but not all the way

You may have heard the advice (including from us) to de-clutter your home before listing it for sale by empting out closets, cabinets, and other storage areas. In fact, the perception of a potential buyer is that a home is larger, more inviting, and even lighter when there are less effects and possession around, and they can even subconsciously project their own things in the space. But you also don’t want a home to be completely devoid of furniture and decorations. A great tactic is to take out 80% of your stuff out of closets and storage areas and out it in off-site storage (not packed into your garage.) But by leaving a few choice items in your closets, cabinets, and on countertops, those areas and surfaces will look even bigger and more spacious, enhancing the buyer’s perception of utility.

6. A picture is worth a lot more than 1,000 words

When selling real estate, you can never have too many attractive and professional quality photographs. Since the vast majority of buyers and agents will first be exposed to your listing online, the first thing people do is look at the main photo and then start clicking on a few more. In fact, a recent study showed that listings with more than 6 pictures are twice as likely to be viewed by buyers as listings that had fewer than 6 pictures! It’s also worth to have your photographs taken by a real estate photography professional, and for higher-end and luxury listings, video tours and drone footage will yield great results.

7. Relocate the pets

Fido The Dog may be a beloved member of the family, but it would be wise to remove them from your home during the period when you’re selling. Buyers may be allergic to dogs or cats, annoyed by incessant barking, scared or have traumatic memories, or just turned off by the smell. It’s a certainty that having non-traditional pets like snakes, weasels, etc. will turn away a large chunk of your perspective buyers – and drop your price. You can bring them back into the home once you have a signed offer and you’re in escrow, but make other arrangements for the few weeks when you’re trying to attract buyers.

8. Stainless and uniform in the kitchen

Kitchen appliances should definitely be uniform (not mismatched between black, white, and stainless.) A brand new stainless steel refrigerator won’t be viewed as a positive if the rest of the appliances are different, but only highlight the fact that they’re not updated. For most properties, stainless steel appliances are well received because they are universal and perceived as higher quality. White appliances should be a second option and you probably want to avoid black kitchen appliances.

9. Incentivize those who are helping you

Your home may be priced correctly, immaculately staged, and even blow away the competition, but if you are offering a reduced commission for the buyer’s agent, it probably won’t sell. Of course everyone wants to save money, but reducing listing and buyer agent commissions only guarantees that you are de-incentivizing the exact people who can help you sell and net the highest profit. In fact, if your buyer’s agent commission falls below a certain acceptable level, most agents won’t even bother showing your home! Conversely, research shows that offering full commission or even .25 or .50% above the norm yields a much higher rate of showings, quality offers, asking price, and net profit for the seller.

10. Sell the lifestyle and amenities

Remember that you aren’t just selling your home, but selling the experiences, amenities, and lifestyle a buyer will have access to if they buy your home. Be sure to feature information/photos/and anecdotes about outdoor living areas, neighborhood schools, nearby parks, shopping, great restaurants, community amenities, and any gyms, sports fields, jogging trails, etc.

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We actually have even more home selling secrets and tips to share with you, so stay tuned for part three of this blog, and contact us any time you have questions about selling your home!

Home selling science, psychology and secrets that will make you huge money!

When it comes to selling your home, everyone wants to make the highest profit they can. To do that, their first instinct might just be to raise the price of their home as high as humanly possible and hope it sells. But in fact, there is a whole hidden science to selling a home, based on mountains of data, copious independent research, and the psychology of perceptions and human behavior.
 We’ll start here with our first five home selling secrets but we have dozens of these from decades of successfully representing home sellers, so stay tuned and of course contact us if you want to find out how to make the most money when you sell your home!

 1.         Start a bidding war
Data shows that the best way to get top dollar for your home is to price it just slightly below market value – or at least on par with your lesser competition. Why does that make sense? By pricing it aggressively, you set up the perfect conditions for a bidding war, where buyers swarm to see the house, their realtor’s push them to make offers, a sense of urgency becomes palpable, and multiple offers ensue, all trying to one-up each other. It takes smart strategizing, the right marketing plan, and an experienced, savvy agent representing you to do this right, but sellers always benefit and maximize their profits when there is a bidding war.

 Remember that human psychology reveals that people are more motivated by the fear of missing out than the hope for gain, which means that they’ll write better offers for higher dollar amounts when they know there is a lot of interest in the listing and they stand to lose a great deal to someone else if they don’t act quickly and definitively.

 2. Make sure you trigger a buyer's olfactory sense.
Research shows that smell has a major impact on if a buyer likes a home or not, and to what degree. In fact, the sense of smell incites memories and the deepest emotional attractions more than any other sense, literally harkening back to our childhood and earliest recollections of family, home, and comfort.

 But of course people can’t really objectively detect their own home’s scent, so ask a neighbor, friend, or your real estate agent to walk through with attentive nostrils and give you an honest assessment.

 There are many ways to get your home smelling great including scented plugins that automatically discharge periodically, a fire if you have a fireplace, fresh flowers, and even baking cookies.

 But no matter what you do, try to keep it simple and neutral. A study conducted by Washington State University found that shoppers will spend 32% more in stores when a simple orange scent is piped in compared to more complex potpourris of orange, basil, and green tea.

 3. Consider not pricing your home with 9’s at the end.
It’s hard not to notice that the price of almost every consumer good or service that’s advertised ends with 9’s these days. We pay $19.99 for a book, $49.99 a month at the gym, and $29,999 for our brand new car. But when it comes to pricing your home, you may want to rethink the “Rule of 9.” That’s because a study by Old Dominion University found that pricing a home with $XZY,999 at the end (like $349,999) can actually be perceived negatively by potential buyers. It seems that in this day and age of marketing and advertising overload, consumers are wary of high-end purchases that purposely try to appear a penny or a dollar less.

 So try pricing your home correctly and fairly without resorting to the $XYZ,999 trick. And don’t worry about getting left out of home searches, because people always input “$350,000 and less” or the equivalent in home search sites, never $349,999.

 4. But don’t price your home a round number, either.
Believe it or not, we’re not finished with the psychology of pricing. Studies show that homebuyers are also weary of homes with prices that are perfectly round numbers, like $300,000. Subconsciously, homebuyers can’t help but perceive this as too arbitrary and amateurish. But research shows that more specific numbers, like $317,000 or $296,500, etc., are seen as fair and accurate professional assessments of the home’s value. In fact, a study by the Columbia Business School found that negotiators who ask for specific amounts are more successful than when they float round numbers.

 5. List your home on Thursday or Friday.
Does it really matter what day of the week you list your home? The data on home selling suggests that it does, as homes that are first listed on Thursdays or Fridays sell quicker and at higher prices than the general 7-day median. The logic behind this is simple – the vast majority of homebuyers go looking for homes on the weekends. So by making your home go active on the MLS (Metro List Services), it appears as a brand new listing as realtors who represent those homebuyers do their searches and send them over to their clients to narrow down the field and get organized for the weekend. So Thursday and Friday listings look like hot new options that just hit the market – which leads the buyers and their realtors to prioritize viewing those homes – and making offers. How much of a difference can this make? Surveys of housing data show that listing your home on a Thursday or Friday could actually yield an average of $2,800 more in a seller’s pocket on a $400,000 home sale.

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Stay tuned for more of these tips and contact us if you'd like more information on making the most money when selling your home.