The 3% Rule: How to potentially make 3% more profit on the sale of your home (Part 2)

After decades in real estate and selling hundreds of homes, I truly believe that the average homeowner can do certain things to positively influence their sale. I call it the “3% Rule,” and it means that the average homeowner can potentially make up to about 3% more on their home sale. 

Of course, this isn’t an exact science. But even a 1% increase in a $300,000 home sale would equal an additional $3,000 in a home seller’s pocket. And 3% would equal a whopping $9,000! 

In part one of this blog, I covered my first seven points of my 3% Rule and today I'll delve into the remaining eight.

So how can you potentially make up to 3% more on the sale of your home?

8. Have professional photos taken

If an image is worth a thousand words, the images home shoppers first see of your home could possibly make you tens of thousands of dollars. For that reason, we suggest using a professional photographer for your listing photos, who will employ perfect lighting, and lenses with pinpoint clarity. With most buyers thumbing through hundreds of listings on the internet, the first impression those photos will make can result in more looks, interest, and ultimately, a better opportunity to sell your home for top dollar. 

9. Price your home right the first time

You may think that the easiest way to net more money on your home sale – or even 3% more – is to price your home higher. But overpricing your home compared to the competition will only ensure that you get fewer online views, fewer walk-throughs, fewer offers, and, probably, not sell it for that higher price at all.

Instead, think of selling your home as a balancing act between getting the highest possible price and also selling it as quickly and efficiently as possible. In fact, research shows that the longer a home is listed without selling, the less it will ultimately get. And you’ll probably have to pay your mortgage payment if it doesn’t sell quickly, or even two or three payments (or more!)

So we’ll sit down together and look at a comprehensive market analysis, revealing the hard data about what similar homes in the same area are selling for, as well as what other competition is on the market. 

10. Give the dog (or pet) a vacation away from home

Surveys show that if you really want to sell your home for top dollar, it's best to relocate pets off of the property during the listing and showing process. Not everyone is a dog/cat/or pet person, and some people have allergies or serious reservations about animals. Even if you put them in a side room, the fact that they are there and the buyer can't openly explore the home will leave them with a less than a positive feeling.  

11. Maximize light 

One of the easiest ways to make a house look larger, nicer, and more inviting is to brighten it up, especially with natural light. So remove those heavy, dreary shades and curtains for lighter translucent materials, change outdated or inadequate fixtures, and consider new bulbs with soft white light. Research shows that just by doing these things you'll get a 300% Return On Investment when selling – which is a super simple way to try and reach that goal of a +3% sale price.

12. Take an honest look at your competition

Before we ever put a sign in your front yard and list your home for sale, together, we’ll look closely at the other homes that are active, pending and sold in your neighborhood. Not only will this give us an idea of where to price your home accurately, but we'll also understand what other options buyers are seeing when they go house hunting.  

Ultimately, we’ll present you with a detailed market analysis with 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). Armed with this knowledge, we’ll be able to strategically price and position your listing against the competition.

13. Start a bidding war with an attractive price

One of the best ways to get the MOST net proceeds for your home is to price it extremely aggressively from the start. This may feel counterintuitive, but by pricing it favorably, you'll create a huge buzz of agents and buyers who rush to see your home as soon as it hits the market. They'll feel the sense of urgency and quickly submit full price and higher offers, and most often even engage in a bidding war that drives your price up.

14. Make it easy to show – and show well!

How easy will it be for other real estate agents to show their eager buyers your home? You’ll be doing yourself a great service if you make it easy and accessible to show for other agents (and their buyers!)

It’s also wise to prepare ahead of your listing by starting to pack, organize all of your possessions, and move furniture and boxes to a storage unit ahead of time. That way, the home will be less cluttered, look bigger, and buyers will be able to envision living there as they walk through.

15. Don’t ever hold back when it comes to disclosures

If you really want to see your home sale go smoothly – including netting the highest possible profit - make sure to honestly and accurately fill out your disclosures. Not being forthright about any material defects, problems, and issues with the property – or even the neighborhood – will throw a monkey wrench in the transaction, jeopardizing the sale, costing you more money, and possibly even landing you in court. 

The good news is that we can usually solve many of these concerns before the home is even listed by ordering the appropriate reports and making necessary repairs, which will give the buyer a green light to offer a great price.

How else can you sell your home for more? Use the Alfano Group Real Estate Agency!

Too often, homeowners choose a Realtor just because they know the person socially or they bump into them at an open house, but smart sellers enlist the help of the best real estate professional possible.

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!

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.