Attract Serious Home Buyers
It goes without saying that you and your real estate agent want to attract serious home buyers, but your marketing may instead be attracting Lookie-Loos.
Serious buyers want to find a home. They have criteria, a price, and a moving date. They’re usually represented by a REALTOR®. They’ve eliminated homes on the Internet and have your home on the short list. They’ve been pre-qualified by a lender, and are ready to make an offer on the right home.
A Lookie-Loo is a person who is not seriously in the market to buy a home. This could be a nosy neighbor, an open house junkie, or someone who thinks they’re serious when they’re incapable of making a realistic offer.
In determining your marketing strategy, your REALTOR knows what will work to get serious buyers coming to see your home, and what filters will discourage people who will waste your time.
Attract Serious Buyers
In any market, your home is competing with newer homes that offer updated floor plans, jetted tubs, hardwood floors, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, decorating allowances, and more. In a slow market, sellers offer decorating allowances or closing costs as incentives.
Your home is also competing with your neighbors’ homes for sale, which may be in better condition or more updated than yours. And in a slow market, you may have a rising number of foreclosures that are pulling home prices down.
The point is that buyers want real value, no matter what the market is doing.
Marketing Your Home
In a hot market, your REALTOR might get an offer on your home as soon as it’s listed on the MLS or a sign is put in the yard. In a buyer’s market, when buyers are reluctant to commit, you and your REALTOR have to do much more.
Your job is to prepare your home to sell. Your REALTOR’s job is to network, advertise, and market your home to raise awareness and find interested buyers.
Here are a few things that you can do:
- Verify market prices with your agent – Price your home for today’s market reality.
- Stage your home to its best advantage – Declutter, depersonalize, clean, add a coat of fresh paint, enhance curb appeal, trim shrubbery/trees/grass and freshen up landscaping with colorful flowers.
- Fix everything that’s a problem – No leaks, chips, smells. Move-in ready condition is what most buyers want. Don’t give buyers room to argue price due to condition.
- Do something extra for your home – Remodeling and adding new appliances, or new countertops can work wonders.
- Do something extra for the buyer – Include buyer financing, the history of the home, etc.
Discourage Too Many Lookie-Loos
Your REALTOR can discourage too many Lookie Loos by encouraging serious buyers to consider your home. Your REALTOR can network with other REALTORs and tell them all the things you’ve done to attract a serious, realistic offer. He/she can ask them to invite their buyers to view your home.
- Allow your REALTOR to hold an open house for agents during the week.
- Make sure your REALTOR creates a really good online presentation of your home with lots of pictures, a virtual tour, local amenities, school data, and more. The idea is to give buyers enough information to put your home on their short list.
- Your REALTOR can also employ niche marketing and out of box marketing ideas. If your home is near a college, she can advertise in college papers, alumni magazines, billboards or student housing websites.
The more questions you can answer about your home and neighborhood online, the less interested Lookie-Loos will be in traipsing through your home.
When you do have an open house, don’t make it easy for people to have the run of your home. Insist your REALTOR register visitors. Serious buyers won’t be offended but non-serious buyers will be very reluctant to provide personal information.
Despite your precautions, some Lookie-Loos will slip through, but look at it this way – if your home is ready for market and priced to sell, it’s a good deal for any buyer, even a Lookie-Loo.
By Tisha Gay