Real estate demand and supply curve keeps shifting, and at times, there is an oversupply of properties available as compared to the number of available buyers.

As a seller, the last thing you want is your property to increase the number of days it spends on the market, thereby lowering your chances of establishing a fair price, or a price that you deserve.

If a house has been on the market for more than 4 weeks, it may be considered stale, and will fail to attract prospective buyers. They may immediately start asking questions like, ‘why has no one bought this house yet?’ or they might haggle for a lower price that does not go in your favor.

This guide offers practical tips on finding clients to sellers and real estate agents so they can master the art of listing selling and market properties with tactics that actually work in the world of real estate.

How to sell your house like a pro

While there is a lot of focus on the emotions involved in the home buying process, we fail to take into account the ordeal of sellers. Whether you are a first-time seller or a veteran, the pressure of making an early sale is always high.

So if you’re looking to sell your house like a pro, here is what you need to consider.

For sale by owner or real estate agent?

The first step to selling a home is deciding the route that you want to take. For sale by owner (FSBO) is a common term used in real estate. This is the option you’d avail if you want to save the fees of hiring a real estate agent. But is that always a smart choice?

If you look for practical tips on finding clients, a realtor naturally access has more contacts in the industry. Research shows that 12% of sellers find it hard to fix up their home for sale, delaying the process. This is why the services of a real estate agent would come in handy. To make a successful sale, you need to hire the right real estate agent. So here are a few characteristics of a top real estate agent.

Professionalism

Always hire a real estate agent who has the right set of qualifications for the job. While it may be easier to hire a friend or family member, remember that this may decide how fast your property will sell. Ideally, you should look for a real estate agent who is either an ABR (Accredited Buyer’s Representative) or CRS (Certified Residential Specialist).

Experience

Experience is indispensable when it comes to listing selling real estate. Mastering the art of real estate requires you to thoroughly understand the market in which you operate. Therefore, it is important to look for a real estate agent who has been working in the region where your property is located.

Selling real estate requires you to you know the price and closing sales of recent properties and have the access and contacts to the right pool of qualified buyers. The professional you hire should be well-versed to acquire and maintain listings and decide on a fair price and closing price for your house.

Communication

While most people don’t consider this, it is important to know if your chosen real estate agent has a communicative personality. This is important because healthy communications is key to make an attractive listing and speedy sale.

You should feel comfortable asking your real estate agent any question about the selling process and they should be open to addressing your queries and concerns. This is the only way you’d be able to master the art of selling real estate.

Professional home inspection

A smart agent knows how to reduce the time a property spends on the market. Mastering the art of listing selling requires you to take a buyer’s journey into consideration. You know that any buyer would get a professional home inspection done before closing a sale. If they find something wrong with the house, this would only delay the selling process.

To stay ahead of the game, sellers should have a professional home inspection done before they list the house. While you may have to pay the cost of it upfront, it will save you both time and money in the long run.

Pre-inspecting the house has several perks for a seller, as mentioned below.

Allows for seamless transaction

If you’re wondering how to master the art of listing and selling real estate, you need to do all the things that will ensure a smooth transaction, and a home inspection is one of them.

Non-disclosure of problems with the property is one of the primary reasons buyers walk away from a sale, and this means your house stays on the market longer, depreciating its value. A pre-inspection makes you more keen to establishing a fair price, one that takes into account the cost of potential repair in the property.

Once the buyer knows the seller has conducted a pre-inspection for establishing a fair price, they would be more likely to make a speedier sale, saving you time.

Make any repairs

Selling real estate requires you to pre-empt the problems that a buyer will bring up to haggle for a lower price. This usually happens after a buyer gets home inspection done.

As a seller, a home inspection will come in handy. You can take care of any repairs that a buyer might bring forth later, and take care of them early on. This way, you’ll not only save time but also improve the house’s condition to make for an attractive listing. Selling real estate is made easier and more hassle-free this way.

Improves seller’s reputation

If you want to master the art of listing selling, you need to think ahead. In the real estate market, a seller’s reputation is of immense importance. Even if you keep morality aside, disclosing the faults of the listed property will earn you a good repute in the sphere, making your future sales easier. This is one of the top tips on finding clients when they look for a realtor, a honesty and uprightness is one of he characteristics of a top agent.

A buyer would be more likely to trust a seller who is honest and upfront, but that too in a tactful way. A pre inspection allows you to decide what faults a buyer may bring forth, and disclose these to them beforehand to establish yourself a trusted seller, which will help with your future sales as well.

Establish a fair listing price

This is by far the most important step that will dictate how well your selling process goes. In fact, if you search how to master the art of listing and selling real estate, establishing a smart price will top the chart.

To do this, a seller or agent needs to understand that there are two prices involved. The first is the listing or asking price, and the second is the closing price, one that the buyer will eventually pay. Between these two prices, there is room for a whole lot of negotiation.

To establish a fair price and closing sale, you need to conduct a competitive market analysis (CMA). This helps to decide the real value of the home that you’re selling. You might want to look at similar properties and the price at which they were sold in the last 3 months. These sales should be recent, or your CMA will be redundant.

Pricing considerations: Finding a balance

One of the characteristics of a top realtor is knowing how to get their client is a price in their favor. The art of listing selling requires that you decide on a balanced price. While taking into account the market value and previous listings and sales is important, you also need to use strategy to attract buyers. Look for houses establishing a fair price that got them sold, and also consider how quickly the sale closed.

Setting a price that is too high or too low will prove detrimental. Here’s how. Setting a price that is too high above the market value means that your house won’t be picked up for viewing. Buyers might be put off at the very start without even giving your home a chance.

Setting a price that is too low might ensure a quick sale, but it means you undersold your property without waiting for a buyer who would have given you a price that your property deserved.

Therefore, you need to master the art of establishing the right price, one that is not overly high, but also leaves room for negotiation, which is inevitable.

List and market the property

Now that all other things are underway, you need to let buyers know your property is available for sale. You’d do this by listing and marketing your house. For finding clients holding effective means to buy the property, you need to ensure your medium of marketing is right. Read on to master the art of listing selling real estate just the way Tom Hopkins, expert salesman, describes in his book.

Listing tips to get your property noticed

We often see guides helping buyers on how to negotiate a fair price, but here we take a look at real estate from the other end of the spectrum. Statistics show a whopping 6.5 million houses were sold in the U.S. in 2020 and this number is expected to rise in 2021. While this means there are buyers available, it also sheds light on the number of available properties.

You have a property to sell, and you list it, but how do make sure it gets noticed? Here, taking a page out of Tom Hopkins bestselling book, ‘How to Master the Art of Selling’, we’re going to give you practical tips on finding and attracting a wider pool of buyers.

Market your property online

If you’re looking for tips on finding clients, the best platform is online! Yes, the onset of a digital media has paved the way for a new way of listing and selling. It only makes sense if you look at where your prospective clients are.

A considerable number of people own a smartphone, which means they have access to the internet. In conjunction with this, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) shows that roughly 84% of people use the internet to start their home buying process. In light of this, you have a lot to gain from listing and marketing your property online.

In addition, the current pandemic has made a place for online real estate. So amidst COVID-19, the art of selling real estate has slightly changed. When people are looking for properties online, it saves them the hassle of physically going to a property and then finding out they don’t like it. It is a much safer option that they can analyze a property online and then narrow down the list of houses they actually want to visit.

Leverage the power of SEO

We’re all familiar with the term search engine optimization (SEO) but did you know it has a vital role to play in selling real estate? You need to conduct research that will show you the keywords that will drive traffic. These keywords should be targeted so that they narrowly define your listing. This way, you’ll be able to attract the niche you’re looking for.

A major reason why sellers get buyers but still fail to make a sale is that they don’t attract the right buyers. This is why SEO is an important tool to mastering the art of selling in real estate.

Ideally, sellers should use keywords between 2-4 phrases long that include details like city, state or neighborhood where your property is located. Instead of long end sentences, headings should be brief and to the point, describing the property in the same way that potential customers would be searching. For example, you would use ‘2-bedroom luxury apartment in Princeton, New Jersey.’ This way, buyers looking to purchase in the said area will contact you.

Host an open house

Listing selling real estate requires you to consider the traditional method of open houses. Effective open houses establishing a fair price can catalyze a purchase, so do consider this option.

In the recent times, success of open houses has been brought under question but research still shows that clients holding effective open houses can be successful in the real estate business to further a home purchase.

Open houses are great way to showcase the home and attract a potential customer who lives nearby. Even if a customer wasn’t particularly looking for a home, taking a tour might change their mind, boosting chances of a sale.

Moreover, an in-person tour of the house is always more effective than just seeing pictures. Of course, to make this possible, you need to stage the property more in an attractive manner. These marketing techniques that showcase houses establishing a fair price will allow you to attract more customers who are likely to buy the house.

Negotiate the price

Once customers see houses establishing a fair price on the market, they will start to approach the salesperson. As a salesperson, it is your job to get your client a fair price and closing sale.

Here, you have three options. You can accept the offer as it is, try negotiating or reject the offer. Of course, you need to consider whether it’s a seller’s market or a buyer’s market, the time your house has spent on the market, and the other offers you have.

If you do have better offers, as a salesperson you can maintain listings and offers by starting a bidding war and other pricing techniques to get your client a fair price and closing.

Final word

As a realtor or salesperson, you can acquire and maintain listings by using the right pricing and marketing techniques, the characteristics of a top agent. This guide offers practical tips on finding qualified buyers that will spur sales and improve your career in the business.

While home buying is considered hard, you need to have market know-how, negotiation tactics and contacts to acquire and maintain listings in the business in which you operate.

Selling a home or selling anything at all is closely similar, so try to leverage the content in Tom Hopkins famous book and listen to what the top salesperson tells. When you understand how the real estate business works, it will be easier to make sales and acquire and maintain listings to establish your career in real estate.