Three Keys To Selling A Home In 2010

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If you have decided that you must sell a home in 2010, then I recommend that you prepare yourself for a successful (ad)venture. You see, right now, nearly 80% of homeowners who decided to sell their home over the past year failed (they still own the home), but you do not have to be like them.

I would encourage you to prepare a successful plan for selling your home. During the planning stage, if you realize you cannot sell your home due to conditions beyond your control, then make a wise decision to stay out of the market!

If we can lower the inventory of homes for sale in Tallahassee, we will see the  housing market return to equilibrium much faster! So do your part, enter the market if you are serious, or leave it if you are not.

Three Keys To Selling A Home In 2010

When I talk to potential home sellers in Tallahassee, I tell them that there are three keys to developing a successful home selling plan. Follow these three keys and 2010 will the year of success for you too.

1. Think Like A Home Buyer- If you want to sell your home, you need to understand what today's homebuyer is doing so that you can attract the one that will eventually own your home. Fortunately, the National Association of REALTORS® just released its 2009 PROFILE OF HOME BUYERS AND SELLERS report, which is chock full of information that is invaluable to an active home seller.
2. Be Visible Where Buyers Are Shopping- Know where the buyers are looking, and be there! I am amazed by how many people try to market their home with useless traditional methods when it is obvious that homebuyers are not going to react positively to these methodologies any more.
3. Follow The Market (Be Informed)- Real estate is like all other commodities. Prices go up and prices go down. There are trends and there are cycles. If you are "in the market," then you need to "know the market."

Think Like A Home Buyer

If you want to sell a home in 2010, then you need to understand what a 2010 homebuyer is facing. The following information was culled from the National Association of REALTORS® just released its 2009 PROFILE OF HOME BUYERS AND SELLERS report, and gives a professional home marketing company critical information that can be utilized to get homes sold. The information in this 116 page report is revealing and lengthy, but here is a great summary:

• Who Were The Home Buyers?

• Forty-seven percent of recent home buyers were first-time buyers.
• The typical first-time home buyer was 30 years old, while the typical repeat buyer was 48 years old.
• The 2008 median household income of buyers was $73,100. The median income was $61,600 among first-time buyers and $88,100 among repeat buyers.
• Twenty-one percent of recent home buyers were single females, and 10 percent were single males.
• For one-third of recent home buyers, the primary reason for the recent home purchase was a desire to own a home.

• What Homes Did They Buy?

• New home purchases were at the lowest level in eight years—down to 18 percent of all recent home purchases.
• The typical home purchased was 1,800 square feet in size and was built in 1991.
• Seventy-eight percent of home buyers purchased a detached single family home.
• The median price of home purchased was $210,000 in the Northeast, $158,000 in the Midwest, $175,000 in the South, and $240,000 in the West.
• When considering the purchase of a home, commuting costs were considered very or somewhat important by 78 percent of buyers.

• How Did Homebuyers Find The Home They Purchased?

• For more than one-third of home buyers, the first step in the home-buying process was looking online for properties.
• Nine in ten home buyers and 94 used the Internet to search for homes.
• Real estate agents were viewed as a very useful information source by 81 percent of buyers who used an agent while searching for a home.
• The typical home buyer searched for 12 weeks and viewed 12 homes.

• How Did Homebuyers Purchase The Home?

• Seventy-seven percent of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker.
• Ten percent of buyers purchased a home in foreclosure, up from 3 percent in 2008.
• Forty-four percent of buyers found their agent through a referral from a friend or family member.

• How Did Homebuyers Pay For The Home?

• Ninety-two percent of home buyers financed their recent home purchase.
• The percentage of first-time buyers who financed 100 percent of the purchase price with a mortgage dropped to 15 percent from 23 percent last year.
• Nearly half (47 percent) of home buyers reported they have made some sacrifices such as reducing spending on luxury items, entertainment or clothing.
• One-fifth of first-time buyers reported their mortgage application and approval process was somewhat more difficult than they expected, and one-in-ten reported it was much more difficult than expected.

Be Visible Where Buyers Are Shopping

This is the key that home sellers must understand when they discuss marketing methods and marketing mediums. The very fact that you are reading this right now should help you understand that I believe real estate consumers are on the internet.

Why are real estate companies still spending all of their resources to advertise in newspapers and magazines when only 6% of the market is not using the internet? The internet has changed the way consumers shop for products, and real estate is not any different than other high-ticket items that consumers want to study and review before they buy. Make sure the real estate company that you hire invests its resources and time into positioning your home correctly on the internet.

The information about homebuyers listed above demonstrates that home buyers are researching the internet. This means that your home, and more importantly, the marketing company for your home, must have an exceptional understanding of how the traffic on the internet moves. Here is something to consider:

If you hire a real estate company with a beautiful real estate web site that will feature hundreds of pictures of your home, will that get it sold? Will that even get it noticed among the thousands of homes for sale in Tallahassee? The answer is most likely not. The real estate web site must know how to draw traffic to its site! How good is a web site that nobody visits?

To successfully market a home on the internet, the home must be positioned on a highly trafficked real estate web site where Tallahassee home buyers are shopping. Who cares how pretty a site is if nobody is going to it. Select a real estate company that has original content, that has demonstrable traffic and visitors, and your home will be viewed by the right type of buyers.

Take the time to do your own research before selecting the real estate agent who can sell your home. More importantly, look for the real estate company that will work to sell your home. Act like a typical buyer who most likely starts his or her home search on Google, with a search of "homes for sale in Tallahassee." They don't typically type in a web address, they are shoppers searching for a product, and that product should be your home!

Follow The Market (Be Informed)

Market awareness has never been more important than it is today. Get informed, stay informed. Have you visited the best real estate market reports on the internet? If not, than how are you going to succeed against your competition? They know what is going on and the information about the Tallahassee housing market is changing all the time.

Do you subscribe to these FREE real estate information sources? Your competition does! Remember, with over 2,500 homes for sale in Tallahassee, you do have competition. Less than 10% of those will sell this month, will you be one of the lucky home sellers who get a contract?

Do you want to know how and why to subscribe to these free real estate resources?

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