Do you have an urgency and want to sell your house fast?
Or do you need to move it because you don’t like to wait the average amount of time it takes to sell it?
The reasons for speeding up the property sales process can be different from one person to another.
But all will ask a similar question. “How to sell my house in 7 days?”
Five conditions must be met to increase the chances of selling a house in 7 days.
- The house needs to make an excellent first impression
- The person selling it (the realtor or directly the seller) must also make an excellent first impression.
- It needs to be priced between 2% and 5% below market value
- The property listing needs to make an excellent online impression
- The offer needs to create some persuasive scarcity
Today we discuss several factors that influence the time a house is on the market until it gets sold.
It is more addressed to someone who wants to sell to retail buyers, although I am sure some of the tips also apply to other types of buyers, such as investors.
Why Are First Impressions So Important?
You will need to consider some buyer psychology when selling a house fast.
Since buyers are humans, the effects of first impressions also apply to them.
You may know it already, but people make decisions about others within the first few seconds or minutes. (source)
You can modify your clothing style, posture, conversational topics, and more to form a better first impression. (source)
This is no different when a retail buyer goes to a showing and sees a house for the first time.
Many forget that not only the product (the house) needs to make a good first impression but also the realtor, the real estate investor, or directly the private owner.
So, not one, but actually, two good first impressions are necessary.
Regarding the product (the property), it is no wonder that 80% of potential buyers know if a property is right for them as soon as they step inside. (source)
So, to make a fast decision for something as complex as a house, something unconscious seems to be happening here.
And yet this is indirectly confirmed in a study called “Unconscious Thought Theory” from 2006.
It explains how people make unconscious decisions when dealing with complicated choices (e.g., buying property).
According to this study, conscious thought is more suitable when you need to solve a simple task, such as choosing the curtains (well, for some people, this might not be that simple, though).
This also explains why potential buyers often focus almost exaggeratedly on specific features that supposedly caught their eyes during a showing (e.g., the lovely wooden floors, source).
Now, you may realize why preparing the property for sale is essential before it is on the market.
The easier you make it for the potential buyer’s subconscious mind to decide quickly, the faster you will sell it.
Prepare Your Home for the Real Estate Market
As a consequence of the above psychological facts mentioned, you want to focus your attention on the most noticeable and obvious areas that can influence the first impression of a potential buyer, such as:
- The front door
- On Point Landscaping (curb appeal)
- Shrubs
- Condition of the paint (avoid cracks, dimples, or paint chips on the walls)
- No clutter (declutter the house)
- A pleasant smell (deodorizing)
- Spotless bathrooms and kitchens (shined sinks and faucets, no dishes in the sink)
- Dust-free and shiny clean surfaces
- Clean, shiny, debris-free, and freshly vacuumed floors and stairs
- Have the home overall well-maintained and as move-in ready as possible
- Sealed asphalt, specialty or stamped driveways
- Conditions for as much natural light as possible
A good idea that includes most of the above points is home staging.
Some (mostly staging service companies) always recommend staging for apparent reasons.
But it is not always a good idea to fully stage a house, as I have already covered in this article.
Very often, soft staging is a good and economically sound alternative.
The stats regarding speeding up a property sale by fully staging it are inconclusive.
Still, it helps generate a good first impression, a critical precondition for a fast sale.
If you have a tip-top staged but not a well-priced house, the chances of the positive effects on a speedy sale will likely be negatively affected.
Another important point when preparing a house for a fast sale is to show that the seller is ready to move.
It seems common sense, but if a seller wants to sell his house within seven days, he should also be ready to close fast and move should it sell during this period.
Therefore, it doesn’t make a good impression when potential buyers can still see clutter in the house.
Secondly, it signals that the seller is not ready to sell it soon or fast.
So, if the seller hasn’t moved to the new property, renting some storage space might not be a bad idea.
A seller doesn’t necessarily need a big wallet to present a well-maintained home.
It can be done with effective, low-cost renovations or repairs, such as a quick touch-up of paint, a professional carpet cleaning, or fixing a leaking roof.
All of the above can be realized quite quickly and on a budget.
The seller should also show that he is completely transparent regarding improvements made and further ones recommended.
So, a list of all the renovations, repairs, improvements, upgrades, and further ones that should be prepared, including estimated costs, should also be ready for potential buyers.
If these improvements were made just recently, this would make the potential buyer feel even more comfortable and increases the chances of a faster decision and, thus, a quicker sale.
Price The House To Sell in 7 Days
If the home is not priced right, everything from the above the seller won’t do much to motivate a potential buyer for a fast decision.
To find a house’s right and competitive price, you can use tools and websites with recent home sale data in the respective neighborhood (also called comps).
Chances are that the potential buyers will be using the same tools, and there are several services and tools available to do just that:
- Realtor.com Just Sold
- MLS Comps (if you have access to an MLS as a realtor or have help from a realtor)
- Zillow using the ‘recently sold’ filter
- Zillow Zestimates (note: this is an estimation tool and not data of recent sales)
- Redfin (note: this is an estimation tool and not data of recent sales)
- Trulia U.S. Assessor Records
- Realty Trac’s database of recently solds
- Property Shark Comparables
- Realeflow
- Realestatecompstoday
- Housecanary
- Propelio – MLS Comps for Real Estate Investors
This part will be trickier if you are a seller or real estate professional outside the United States.
The U.S. is one of the world’s most transparent real estate markets (source).
Most other countries don’t have these tools, and accessing comp data is more complicated and requires more manual on-site research.
Once you have found the market value of your house and are confident about it, you can start pricing it for a fast sale.
Since you aim for a sale within 5 to 7 days, ideally, the price should be below market value (between 2% and 5% of comparable recent sales in the respective neighborhood).
There is one little warning, though.
You may think you can list it at a price above market value to lower it later.
This might work if you don’t aim for a fast sale. But even then, it’s not a very good idea.
Many realtors believe this will damage a sale’s success in general.
The reason is that the most perceived value a property receives from potential buyers is on the first day it hits the market.
The more days pass, the more the perceived value decreases.
This is quite normal.
Suppose you watch a property online for weeks and months on the market as a potential buyer.
In that case, you will start to doubt and wonder why it isn’t selling or what might be wrong with this property.
Make a Good Online Impression
A good online presence is part of the first good impression you want to make.
As the seller or the realtor, you want a great property description (good copywriting) and great pictures or videos.
Ideally, you also need a virtual tour and/ or drone photographs or videos.
I’ve covered the benefits of virtual tours and using good property descriptions (copywriting) and pictures (including drones) in this, and this article.
Introduce Some Persuasive Scarcity
There is one thing you can do to help accelerate the sale a bit further.
However, it won’t move the needle much if it’s not priced correctly and doesn’t make a good first impression.
It’s introducing some scarcity to increase the persuasive power of the home offer.
One method of doing this can be an exclusive bargain through a ‘one weekend only’ open house event.
When you promote this event in your sales copy, it should be emphasized that it’s a time-sensitive offer.
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.
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