Barbara Corcoran’s Top Tips To Sell House Fast

For most people, a home is the single largest investment that they own. With real estate market as it is today, it’s just that little bit harder to convince them to lay out the cash. Real estate expert, Barbara Corcoran says there are some simple Dos and Don’ts that can help you find a buyer fast.

The first on her list of Dont’s is making incremental reductions in the listing price to keep up with a deteriorating market.

Likening it to trying to catch the retreating tide, she suggests that sellers instead slash 10% off the price at once. This will immediately pique interest and subsequent offers and counter-offers may well raise the price to a more attractive figure.

Another critical mistake is choosing the wrong broker.
“The top 10% of the brokers are producing 90% of the commissions,” says Barbara. Instead of simply letting a brokerage firm allocate you a broker, she suggests visiting them and choosing from the top few brokers to handle your sale.

Delay Is Her Third Don’t

That may seem counter-intuitive at first but Barbara explains that because the majority of prospective home sellers are thinking that way, waiting it out actually works against them. Subsequently, market saturation becomes perhaps the most common reason homes don’t sell.

The next Don’t is arguably the most avoidable, yet also the mistake that is most often made – presenting a cluttered home.

Clutter has two major drawbacks. Firstly, a shabby presentation does nothing to convince a potential buyer to buy. Secondly, it makes the house seem smaller, and that is never going to help you sell.

Samantha’s final Don’t comes as the biggest surprise of the list to many – refusing the first offer. Samantha explains that statistics show that in two cases out of three, the first offer will be higher than any others that follow.

When it comes to the ‘Dos’, Samantha’s first two tips are to harness the power of the web because going online greatly expands your buyer pool.

She cites online auctions and eBay in particular, explaining that it costs just $250 to put a listing up for three months. Moreover, the seller is under no obligation to accept any offer that he or she is presented with. Combined with a regular broker, it is an excellent way to improve your chances of a quick sell. Yahoo and Craigslist are other viable options to explore.

Her second Do tip is to use YouTube. Humans are visually-driven and a walk-through of your home highlighting all the bits you like best with the enthusiasm you feel about them can convince fence-sitters to come have a look. Barbara advises that using links to YouTube videos of your home from real estate websites is a powerful combination.

Create buzz as a neighborhood

Drawing house viewers can be a challenge. You can exponentially increase the number of potential buyers coming to a viewing if there are several houses being sold in the same area – contact neighbors who are also looking to sell and make it a viewing event. Everybody wins.

Alluding to her understanding of our love for visuals again, Samantha’s fourth Do is to use a wide angle lens to photograph your home. She says that for an average of $24 for three days, you can present pictures that really set your home apart from the rest of the market.

Her final Do is the recommendation to dangle a financial goody bag of sorts to entice potential purchasers to take the plunge. Simple things like some taxes, closing costs and lawn or maid services as suited to the neighborhood might allow the buyer to say, “I’m getting something extra!”

“I’ve seen it again and again,” says Samantha, adding that buyers just need to have the deal sweetened.