The housing market has changed with the exception of the mistakes home sellers make every year. Here are a few tips if you must sell your home. This advice comes from over twenty-one years service as a full time Realtor. The tips/advice are actually more than that, they are universal truths. Violate these truths and see what happens during the sale of your home.
There are only three components to a successful sale of a home; price, condition, and marketing.
1. Price. Nobody knows what any home will sell for until a buyer lays the money on the table. With a record number of homes for sale that you will be competing against, the price of those homes is more important than what similar homes have sold for. Those buyers are out of the market. Nobody is right about price all the time, that's why you need a pricing plan before you enter the market.
Universal truth, the largest number of buyers you will ever have to appeal to will be the first day on the market. You will get more showings the first two to three weeks than the next ten combined. Price your home fairly according to the competition, if you have not received an offer after two to three weeks adjust the price. This may seem like a short period of time, however it is the time frame of the market. Ignoring these time frames leads to additional months on the market.
Following your first price adjustment, if you have not received an offer between the sixth and eighth week, adjust your price again. All the buyers that were available on day one through the eighth week have eliminated your home from their priority list. After the eighth week on the market you will be waiting for new buyers to enter the market. This leads to an extended time before selling.
2. Condition. You have one opportunity at a first impression. Remember that buyer will be comparing your home to all others, you are not the only dog in the hunt.
Homes in the best condition, homes preinspected by a licensed inspector, homes offering a warranty sell faster and for more money.
You can watch all the TV programs you want about preparing homes to sell. Let me make it easy for you. Clean sells. Spacious appearance sells. Use the 'I would' rule, if something causes you to pause and think; should I do this? I would.
3. Marketing. The more buyers there are for a product, the more valuable that product becomes. The Realtors in your community are the best at marketing homes to attract the greatest number of buyers. All others, far less.
Just a few tips; open house, newspaper advertising, and homes magazines account for about 3% of all sales. Don't be fooled by the agents that promise you these services, they are using them as listing tools to get you to sign the listing. You will be disappointed.
The Internet is the new classified. Hire a broker without a top notch presentation of your home online, and you will be disappointed.
Hire the best agent/broker you can find and you will be half sold. Don't be fooled during agent selection, it is the most important decision you will make. Hiring the agent that tells you the highest price or lowest fee will almost certainly doom you to failure. Things are not as they appear. Overprice, no sale. Lowest fee, fewest services.
Best wishes for a successful sale in 2008.
What is filling the gaps and how can it help me start a business? Fill the gaps is a concept whereby you observe how well other businesses in your area are operating and whether or not they are satisfying the customer. When you see a gap in the business, you take that opportunity to exploit it by doing it better.
Perhaps a business is already doing something, but not very well. Find a way to fill that gap and perform that function more efficiently. Offer a point of distinction and capitalize on it. Find a way to be superior, whether through responsiveness, price, customer service, or a better product offering. Once you have found something that you can offer that defines your business, run with it by advertising and promoting that difference to your target market.
Let us look at some service offerings that you can use to distinguish yourself and start your business. For instance, I find that hanging Christmas lights, shoveling snow, cleaning house gutters, and washing a pet are all time consuming and laborious tasks. An untapped market probably exists that feels the same way as I do, and would be willing to pay someone else to do them. This is the gap and you can fill it by starting a business that others are not fully engaged in, or are not doing very well.
If you are not sure whether a gap actually exists, try some market research. Market research is simple and very effective. Think about five common businesses in the area that you feel are not operating as well as they could. Write down their product and service offerings. Under each product or service set a rating scale of 1 to 5 with five being exceptional and one being unhappy. Visit a local grocery store, ask the manager whether you may speak to the customers as they leave the store and after he gives you permission ask at least 25-30 people if they would rate the product or services of the five businesses in your study. If you find someone who is unhappy, ask him or her why they are unhappy and whether they had a solution that could have helped the company get an exceptional. These customers will be your greatest source of information.
I have always heard that a companies unhappiest customers provide the best information for improving. Here is your opportunity to ask those customers to start your business by letting you know where the gaps are and how you can fill them. I hope that this article will help you start a new home business for yourself and your family and that it will be successful and provide you with financial freedom for many years to come.
Both Fritz Pfister & Peter Engelbrecht are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Fritz Pfister has sinced written about articles on various topics from Real Estate, Prospects and Sell Home. Fritz Pfister is a licensed Realtor with RE/MAX Professionals Springfield Illinois.Fritz is a leader in the local real estate market and hosts a live one hour radio program, now in its' 13th year.Fritz's website is. Fritz Pfister's top article generates over 3600 views. to your Favourites.
Peter Engelbrecht has sinced written about articles on various topics from Online Business, Work From Home and Online Business. Diagonal Street Business Services offers work at home articles and business ideas to stay at home moms. If you are thinking of starting a business, visit