I’d say the majority of people selling their home have “getting the most money possible” high on their list. In our 20+ years I don’t recall anyone asking how they could get the least amount. The strange thing is many want the most but inadvertently do things to ensure it won’t happen. This article is written so you won’t be one of the losers.

This three part series offers 7 tips that will help you get the most money for your home when it comes time to sell. The info is based on what we’ve personally learned over the past 20+ years as well as what we’ve observed from other top listing agents.

Since articles often get reposted without permission, please know it is original, copyrighted content from The Urban Team in Phoenix Arizona and was originally posted on UrbanConnectionRealty.com.

Tips for Selling Your Home For The Most Money (Tips 1-3)

Selling Your Home For The Most Money…Tip #1. Condition of the Property:

The condition of the home is important only if you are trying to get the highest price. The better condition and more upgraded a home, the more likely a broad range of buyers will like it. This is key because sales, real estate or anything else, is a numbers game. The more people who want to buy a product, the more their demand will affect price. Apple Computers plays this to the max.

NOTE: We are not saying you should remodel you home before you sell it. In most cases you’d never get all your remodel costs back.

• Do repairs that reduce the appearance of deferred maintenance and perform a deep cleaning of rooms.
• A good real estate agent will take you room by room and offer advice to help make the home more marketable.
• HGTV often has shows on prepping a home for sale.
• This article has some good advice and is worth reading: What to Fix Before Selling My Home.

Conclusions for Tip #1. Preparing your home to show well is important to getting the most money. Experience tells us deferred maintenance issues often have the biggest effect on price and also come back into play during the home inspection process. A bit of work upfront can help you down the road.

Selling Your Home For The Most Money… Tip #2: The Skills of the Agent:

I hesitated putting this near the top; I don’t want this article to be perceived as a sales letter. At the same time I really needed to say something important.

In the minds of many consumers, Real Estate Agents/Realtors are pretty much pond-scum. In my opinion the industry has done much to earn this reputation. In Arizona, there is little training of agents and getting a license is a joke… you don’t have to have a GED and the course is about 1/8 as long as the one to get a massage or nail technician license.

The above is why having a truly skilled agent help you sell your home is very important. Let’s take a look at some eye-opening stats.

• In the 1^st half of 2013 about 41,000 properties were shown “sold” on the Arizona MLS system. During the same period, nearly 12,000 properties were taken off the market, unsold. Thus, about 1 in 4 properties put on the market did not get sold, thus creating thousands of ticked off and disappointed homes sellers.
• According to International real estate trainer Bob Loeffler, most of the homes noted as “did not sell” have a common denominator. The home owners hired a family member or friend verses interviewing and hiring the person with the best skills.
• Time Magazine’s Business and Money asked the question? How many homes do you think a real estate agent sells in a year?? Well, it turns out the median agent does seven “sides/year” — that is, represents either a buyer or seller in a home transaction. Based on this stat, the average agent may only be involved in the marketing and sale of 3 or 4 homes a year. Is that enough to gain skills and become a true professional? Would you hire an car mechanic who only works on 3 or 4 cars a year.
• Based on numbers provided by AAR and our brokerage, the average real estate agent in Arizona does about 4 transactions a year and about 90% of them quit within two years.

As you can see from the info above:

1. Not all homes put on the market actually sell.
2. Most of the ones that didn’t sell had inexperienced agents marketing the home.
3. Most agents are not in the business long enough to learn how to sell a home.
4. Most agents do not do enough business to gain the skills needed to get the highest price for a home owner.

Conclusion for Tip #2. Hire an experienced listing agent who knows the area well. You may want to take a look at the article on questions to ask when hiring a real estate agent.

Selling Your Home For The Most Money… Tip #3: Make sure your real estate agent is highly tech savvy.

In recent years the practice of real estate has changed dramatically. Companies like Zillow,Yahoo Real Estate and Realtor.com had given consumers direct access to real estate information… notably, homes for sale.

In the past, home listing information was provided by your agent/broker to the public. They would advertise the home on the MLS, newspaper/magazine ads, open houses and other means. Today they better know how to do it on the internet.

Today, the marketing of real estate is mostly an on-line game played on cell phones, IPads and tablets… and to a small extent desktop computers. Let’s take a gaze at how the internet is being used by potential home buyers.

• 52.5 million people visited Zillow’s websites in April 2013.
• 241 million home views were recording on Zillow’s mobile site in April 2013,
• The National Association of Realtors estimates 90% of all home buyers search for homes on the internet and nearly 705 are using mobile devices like IPhones, Android Phoenix, IPads and other tablets.
• It is estimated 88% of the homes people bought in 2012 were first discovered on the internet.
• According to Inman News, less than 15% of all real estate agents have learned how to market homes on the internet.
• Well under 10% of all listing agents know how to market listings to home buyers using mobile devices.
• To have your home showcased on websites & mobile apps like Zillow.com, Realtor.com, and Trulia, your listing agent and/or his broker has to pay these companies for premium membership.
• Many real estate sites filter search results to benefit agents and brokers who pay to be premium members.

Conclusions on Tip #3. A strong understanding of how to market a home on the internet and to mobile devices is imperative these days. Make sure your agent really knows how to position your home on sites like Zillow, Realtor.com and the growing mobile real estate app market.

This ends part one of our series on how to get the most money when selling your home. We are the Urban Team at Realty Executives. We specialize in marketing and selling homes, condos and land in downtown and north central Phoenix.

If we can be of help and service to you it would be our pleasure.

Gene Urban & Ron Urban
The Urban Team at Realty Executives
602-234-5777
Gene@UrbanTeamAZ.com

Connecting People to the Perfect Place for Over 20 Years

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