We meet with home owners almost everyday who are looking to sell their home. These prospective sellers want to learn about our services, our fees, and ultimately what we will do to help them sell their home quickly, while getting as much as possible from the sale. There are a number of factors that we see sellers use to choose an agent. Here is our take on how to pick a listing agent and some pitfalls to avoid in the process.

How NOT to select your listing agent

1. Based on the highest recommended selling price – The first agent says they can sell your home for $400,000. The second agent thinks they can get it sold for $450,000. Don’t automatically choose the second agent with the highest price recommendation. A price recommendation is simply an opinion from the real estate agent, and those opinions are based on their recent experience and knowledge of market data, which is always imperfect in real estate. The agents with the higher proposed selling price do not have access to a “magical” pool of buyers willing to spend more to buy your house. The market will determine the price. Some agents will tell you a low price because they want to price it aggressively and sell it quickly, maybe too quickly. Others will tell you a number that you want to hear to get your listing, knowing full well that once they have the listing in place, they can get you down to a realistic number over time while still retaining the business. At the end of the day, price is your decision. You should listen to the market knowledge and experience of the agents, but you should not blindly choose an agent because they are promising more money. Often those are false promises to get your business.
2. They promise that they have access to a great pool of buyers – There are many variations of this pitch. The agent will tell you that they “work with lots of buyers in the area” or will “expose your listing to all of the agents in their office who do business in the area.” This approach may be valid in small towns with a handful of agents, but it is simply untrue in larger cities with thousands of agents. Actual sales data simply does not show this result. In the Seattle area, 95%+ of sales are closed between agents from totally random and unrelated offices and is almost never sold by your listing agent. In the rare event that your listing agent actually does find you a buyer, it is not because they are currently working with a buyer for your home. It is simply because an unrepresented buyer happens to call their name on the sign.
3. Picking the “neighborhood expert” – Some neighborhoods have a few agents who “own” the neighborhood. You see their signs on all of the neighbors houses, and automatically assume that they have some special expertise in getting home sold quicker. Some of these neighborhood agents are quite good and some are not (see criteria below), but once again they do not have some magical power to produce a buyer for your particular house. In the age of the internet listing, the most important factor is to present an appealing product at a reasonable price to the broadest possible audience of buyers. Buyers could care less who the listing agent is if the house is right for them. If a buyer’s agent has a buyer for your house, they will find you through internet listings, not through consultation with some neighborhood expert.

Selecting the right listing agent

1. Comfort level – Personality fit is critical to picking the right agent. In today’s market, selling a home can be a long and emotional process, sometimes fraught with negative news along the way. You want an agent who you feel comfortable with and are willing to listen to, even if they are delivering news that you do not want to hear.
2. Marketing plan – Does your agent have a plan to expose your listing to the maximum number of buyers? Note that this is different than actually finding a specific buyer (which they don’t do). Buyers and agents will almost certainly find your home online, and a successful listing agent will have a plan to get your listing into every corner of the internet.
3. Presents your home professionally – The agent’s job is to make your listing as attractive as possible and get buyers in the door. Outside of price and location, photos are what bring buyers to your door. There is no excuse for listing agents that do not take professional-quality photos, and thousands of examples of listings with extremely poor photos. The other critical task here is helping you to get your home to “listing condition.” A quality listing agent will not be afraid to tell you what needs to be cleaned, de-cluttered, painted or repaired. Take a look at their current listings and see how they are presented before you make a choice.
4. Has a rational, well-researched approach to pricing – Price is the single biggest factor to getting your home sold quickly. It is a balancing act between wanting to sell quickly and not leaving money on the table. While pricing is ultimately your decision, you want to work with an agent who has a well-thought out approach to pricing your home. Have they researched homes that have actually sold? Are they taking current competitors into account? Have they viewed your competitors in person? How do they adjust prices based on the unique characteristics of your home (positive or negative)? A reputable listing agent will also refuse to take your listing if they think your proposed price is way too high for current market conditions.
5. Doesn’t tell you what you want to hear – You are paying the listing agent for their advice. You are not required to take their advice, but you want someone who will be open and honest about what they think of your home and current market conditions.
6. Listing fees – Listing homes for sale is a competitive business. Some agents are inflexible on their fees, while some will negotiate them. Remember that all fees are negotiable, and you need to feel comfortable with the value you are getting from the agent in exchange for those fees. Choosing the lowest fees is not always the right choice, unless you are prepared to sacrifice service levels to achieve the lower fees.
7. Negotiation, persistence and follow-up – When buyers express interest in a property, you want an agent that will follow-up diligently with all potential leads. Buying a home is not like buying a car. An agent cannot convince someone to buy a home that they originally don’t like, but a good agent can sometimes coax an interested buyer through persistence and follow-up. When you do receive an offer, you want an agent who is a strong negotiator that looks out for your best interests. They are able to effectively state your case to the buyer, hopefully resulting in a higher sales price, while not scaring the buyer away in the process. They are also effective negotiators during the property inspection, seeking creative and fair remedies to both parties to ensure a successful sale. Being a strong negotiator does not always mean being aggressive. Selling a home is a cooperative and often emotional process between your agent, the buyers agent and the buyers. Your agent needs to be able to balance assertiveness with professionalism and courtesy to the other parties in a transaction.
8. Strong communications – You want a listing agent who regularly communicates the progress of your listing and any recommended actions. It will likely take a number of months to sell your home, and you want to be in tune with what is happening with the listing. You should also use agents who have a feedback mechanism for agents and buyers who have seen your house. The most important market advice you can often receive is direct feedback from recent showings.
9. Access to contractors – Selling a house, particularly an older house, may require some home maintenance and repairs to make buyers be willing to purchase the home. Sometimes these are simple fixes, but other times are extensive repairs requiring numerous contractors. A good listing agent can be a valuable resource for getting this work bid out, scheduled and completed. Everyone has busy lives, and having a reliable agent who can make these fixes happen without your involvement will save you lots of time and hassle.
10. Experienced, full-time agents – Selling homes is a full-time job. Part-time agents will give you part-time service. A dedicated agent will always make themselves available to show your home to prospective buyers and has a team of people in place that can help when needed.

Selling a home, particularly in today’s slower real estate market, is a sometimes daunting and emotional task. Doing your homework and selecting the right agent to list your home can pay off with a quicker, relatively pain-free sale, so choose wisely.

Many homeowners owe more than their home is worth and are in financial distress and need to sell their home. One method to get out of the mess is to sell your home as a short sale, where the mortgage holders agree to release the property for less than they are owed. This gets the distressed homeowner out of the situation and prevents the bank from having to foreclose on the property, which is time consuming and expensive, though the bank may still take a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In a short sale, the mortgage holders go through a lengthy review process where they review the financial condition of the seller, evaluate the market value of the home, and determine the payoff amount they are willing to take to release the homeowner from the debt. When a bank approves a short sale, they provide a payoff amount, an approved HUD-1 Settlement Statement and set of conditions that must be met by the seller and buyer. One of those conditions is a “waiver of funds” where the seller relinquishes all rights to receive excess funds from the transaction. Since the bank is being asked to take a large loss on the transaction, it makes sense that they don’t want the seller to walk away with “a little extra” at the closing table. Here is an excerpt from a recent short sale transaction that we closed:

“Any overages must increase the net proceeds and any escrow/impound balances, which also include any insurance and property tax refunds. These will be applied to reduce the total debt of the loan.

The seller shall not receive any proceeds from the sale of the property.”

Seems pretty clear, doesn’t it? The problem is, there are some listing agents out there who promise a “kickback” of some of their commission after the sale closes to give the seller some spending money. I recently came across a situation where the seller was promised $3000 if they chose this particular agent to facilitate their short sale closing. This is in direct violation of the short sale payoff agreement that the seller signs with the bank. I’m not a lawyer, but there are also possible violations of licensing laws in such a scenario. As a real estate broker, we are obligated to act in “good faith” with all parties to the transaction. This includes adhering to the written bank agreement. If you are presented with such a scenario by a potential listing agent, as appealing as it may sound, recognize that they are asking you to willingly violate the bank’s short sale agreement. Seek assistance from a reputable agent experienced in the short sale process instead.

Maybe I am a little old-fashioned, or maybe it is because I own a business, but I fundamentally believe that consumers want to be delighted by the products and services that they buy. If you are shelling out your hard-earned money, you want a product that performs as advertised, is reliable, and is affordable to purchase and own. People love Zappos because they have a wide selection of reasonably-priced shoes coupled with outstanding customer service. People are continually loyal to Honda because their cars have a history of reliability and consistency. People ship their overnight packages with FedEx because they know that FedEx will deliver on time at an affordable price. Selling a home involves these same buyer emotions and decisions, yet many home sellers fail to recognize it and jeopardize their chances of a successful sale. If you are selling a home, demonstrating your pride of ownership and committing to delivering a quality product to your buyer can go a long way towards a successful sale.

One of the agents in our office has a grandfather who is very particular about things that he sells. Whether he is selling you a car, a refrigerator, or a home, he takes the extra steps to make sure that he is selling you the best product possible. He cleans up the car, changes the oil and fixes minor issues before putting it up for sale. He makes sure the the refrigerator is spotless and demonstrates it in good working order when you come to look at it. Does he spend extra money and time to make these happen? Yes, but he ends up with happy buyers in the process and more importantly a successful sale.

Prepare your home before listing

Demonstrating this sort of pride of ownership when you go to sell your home starts when you prepare the home for sale. You have lived there awhile and know many of the quirks and problems in the house. Are there issues that you can fix upfront? Maybe it is as simple as touching up the paint or installing new furnace filters. Maybe it is more involved like fixing a problem with the plumbing or replacing a defective appliance. If you are diligent, you can even pay for your own home inspection upfront to identify issues that need attention prior to the sale. The inspection phase of a home purchase is loaded with pitfalls and potential for the sale to fail. By addressing many of the issues upfront, you can reduce the risk that the sale falls apart during inspection. If the home has some larger issues that you are not planning to fix, being upfront about those issues and accounting for them in your price will let your buyers get past that hurdle before they even make an offer.

Be flexible on inspection negotiations

Demonstrating pride of ownership can also help you overcome buyer objections to items that they do find during their inspection. Every home, no matter how new and how perfect, will surface some issues in a home inspection report. Many buyers don’t want the hassle of fixing things in their new home, and some have unreasonable expectations that the house will be “perfect” when they buy it. Only buyers of new construction can expect perfection, but a seller can help to deliver that perfection by agreeing to fix many items, even if they are small or seemingly insignificant. We see negotiations every day where buyers and sellers get into a disagreement over a ~$1000 list of items that could be fixed by a handyman. For a $400,000 purchase, is it really worth risking the loss of a qualified buyer over such a small amount?

Dealing with unreasonable buyers

The decline in the real estate market has brought out a segment of buyers who expect the world. They want a very large discount off of your list price, and they want you to fix every problem they find in the home. Are they being unreasonable? Yes, but put yourself in their shoes. Wouldn’t you want the house at a great price with no issues to worry about? When the buyers want everything, you are going to need to negotiate to bring things to resolution. Do what you can, within reason, to be flexible and give them some concessions to get them past the issues. All too often we hear “It’s an old house, of course it has issues. We’re not fixing anything.” That is hardly a recipe for buyer satisfaction or trust. Your chances for success go up if you can demonstrate some commitment to the quality of the product that you are selling, which is your home.

The pitfalls of selling “as-is”

Maybe your house has lots of problems, or maybe you don’t have the financial means to facilitate any repairs. Those are both valid situations where you may want to try to sell the home “as-is.” There are certainly buyers out there willing to purchase “as-is” if the issues are reflected in your pricing. More importantly, if you choose to sell “as-is”, you should be very upfront about what they are getting into. Here is an example. Let’s say that you know you need a new furnace, but cannot afford the $4000 replacement cost. One approach is to say “I’m selling it as-is. I know it needs a new furnace, so you are making an offer knowing that fact.” The second approach is to say nothing and let them find out that it needs a new furnace during their inspection. Even if both situations are “as-is”, I guarantee that the secretive approach to the problem is going to end up with them negotiating and asking for the furnace replacement.

The process of selling your home is an emotional and financially stressful one. Your real estate agent can help you navigate the process and come to a mutually acceptable resolution for both the buyer and seller. While your house doesn’t have to be perfect, demonstrating some flexibility and a commitment to selling a quality home will increase your chances of a successful sale in this tough real estate market.

When we are trying to get a new listing with sellers, one of the common sales pitches that our competitors use is that they will “expose your listing to all of the agents at their office, resulting in a better chance of a sale.” In a large city like Seattle, I was suspicious of this claim and most times see transactions happening between totally unrelated listing and selling offices. I decided to run the data for King County sales in July 2009 to get to the answer. I also did an analysis of “dual agency”, which is when both the buyer and seller are represented by the same agent. There are many large real estate brokerages in Seattle, some with 50, 100, or even in a few cases 800+ agents, so there is bound to be some overlap of transactions within the same office.

One other important phenomena is that many times for new construction homes or condos, buyers will simply walk into a sales office and make an offer with the agent who is staffing the sales office. I am able to filter the data to compare new construction with resale to gain a more accurate picture of whether or not agents from the same office as your listing agent will sell your home.

What does the data say?

What can we learn from this data? First of all, for resale of a home, the claim that the listing agent will get a buyer by advertising to other agents in their office is untrue in 90.0% cases. For resale condominiums, it is still largely untrue with 83.4.7% of sales happening between agents from different offices. Interestingly, most of the situations of a sale being completed by the same office are because of dual agency. For resale homes, if you exclude sales where the same agent helped both the buyer and seller, then 96.3% of sales happen between agents from totally different offices. For resale condos, if you exclude dual agency, then 92.7% of sales happen between agents from different offices.

New construction is a slightly different story. For new construction homes, 17.2% of sales happen between agents from the same office, with a whopping 10.4% of buyers using the agent in the sales office. For new construction condos, it is even more exaggerated, with 34.5% of sales happening between agents from the same office and an enormous 20.7% of buyers use the agent in the sales office.

Lessons Learned

There are two things to learn here. First, the claim that listing agents will magically find a buyer for your property by advertising to other agents in their office is largely untrue. The data simply doesn’t support this claim. There are cases of the listing agent finding a buyer directly, probably from their sign or advertising, but be wary of agents who overpromise on this point. Second, there are too many buyers of new construction homes and particularly condos who are blindly choosing to use the agent in the sales office to help them. They must not realize that they are free to obtain their own agent representation, and by using the sales office listing agent, that agent is getting paid double for their work, not to mention that the agent has an obvious conflict of interest with primary allegiance to the builder.

When listing your home for sale, it is important that you choose a listing agent who you can trust. Their job is to market the property and attract as many potential buyers to your home. It is also their job to help you negotiate with buyers to maximize your sales price and sell the home as quickly as possible. We recently have had a few experiences when working our buyers where an incompetent listing agent lost their sellers thousands of dollars through some very simple missteps.

When a buyer is getting ready to submit an offer, it is very common to call the listing agent in advance to alert them about the offer. This is an opportunity to find out if we are competing with other buyers, if there are any special forms needed, and to confirm the seller’s availability to review and respond to our offer. We have made quite a few of these calls lately and had some surprising results. Here is how the call goes:

findwell: We are writing an offer on your listing today an should have it to you this evening. Is there anything else you can tell us before we submit our offer?

Listing Agent: That’s great! We look forward to receiving your offer. By the way, we are lowering our list price today by $15,000.

Guess what, our buyers were prepared to make an offer on your original list price, not your $15,000 reduction. The listing agent’s quick comment just lost their seller $15,000 in the blink of an eye! If we are asking for a discount of $10,000 from your list price, you can bet that we will ask for that same discount off of your new list price. This is Listing Agent 101 stuff. Your listing agent should never process a price change on a day when they are told they are receiving an offer. Let the offer come in and decide what to do from there. This is a big enough mistake that I would seek another listing agent if this happens to you.

There are other times when buyers keep sending messages that they are “getting ready to put in an offer”, but it never seems to come in. If you believe that a price reduction is necessary, don’t wait around for a potential offer that may or may not come in, but do pay attention when you know that an offer is on its way.

How can you avoid this? When you make a price change, ask your agent if there are any potential offers coming in. If you hear that someone is “writing it up”, pause for a moment. It may just help your pocketbook.

I have recently come across some For Sale By Owner (FSBO) properties on property searches for my buyers. Fundamentally I have no problem with sellers trying to sell on their own, and for some people this setup works. However, after looking at some FSBO listings and touring some FSBO homes, there are some basic pieces of advice that I can give you as a seller trying to sell your home on your own.

1. Post lots of photos on the MLS – If you are paying to list your property on the MLS, spend the extra money and make sure you can post a bunch of photos. I just worked with a FSBO seller who bought the “cheap” MLS package which only includes one exterior photo of the house. Buyers expect to see interior photos of a home, even if it is in poor condition or outdated. With only one photo posted, most buyers will think that you are hiding something or that something inside is wrong with the house. You will maximize your potential buyers with high-quality photos of both the exterior and interior of the home.
2. Let the buyers see your home privately – Many sellers who choose the FSBO route are rightfully proud of their homes and want to show them off in-person. However, buyers generally want to see a home without sellers hovering over their every move. In a perfect world, a buyer wants to see a home privately with their agent so that they can speak freely about their opinions of the house. Security is another obvious concern. If you have signed up to have your home listed on an MLS, they will generally also provide a keybox. If you set an appointment policy, the keybox does provide assurance that showings will not take place unless under the supervision of a licensed real estate agent. The keybox will also track who has come in to your house and what time, for added peace of mind.
3. Understand what your are signing – Listing contracts outline specific legal requirements of the transaction. Most importantly they outline details about agency representation and how agents are compensated when your home sells. If you sign a listing agreement that specifies a 3% commission, this will apply to all buyers who come to you with an MLS-member agent. Also keep in mind that the buyer’s agent is representing the buyer and cannot legally or ethically advise you on your contractual obligations. Seek counsel from your FSBO listing agent or attorney if you are unsure about the documents that you are signing.
4. Pay a reasonable buyer’s agent commission if you list on the MLS – With our current commission system, buyer’s agents do expect to be compensated by the seller for their efforts when bringing you a buyer. While I don’t agree with this agent behavior, if you set a very low selling commission, it will reduce agent willingness to show your home. Also, keep in mind that if you require buyer’s to pay their own agent, many will ask for this as a concession in your sales price.

Being a real estate agent can mean being on call during all days of the week. You never know when your buyer is going to find the property they want, and you never know when your seller may receive an offer. Sometimes the offer process happens at inconvenient times, and I’m sure that most agents have received the “evil eye” from their significant other when business calls spill into personal time. Actually, one of my best transactions came together at 7PM on New Year’s Eve!

When interviewing a potential real estate agent, it is critical that you and other agents are able to reach them quickly. Everyone has a personal life and other business matters that will sometimes get in the way, but you want an agent who responds quickly to offer situations and recognizes that “time is of the essence” for real estate contracts.

We see a surprising number of agents who hide their number from other agents in our MLS. This requires you to phone their office during business hours, always resulting in a transfer to their voicemail system. These agents are usually slow to call you back. Guess what, if I am phoning an agent, it is usually because I am hoping to put together a deal with their client. I fail to see why an agent wouldn’t want to receive such a call!

1. Will you be reachable during the evenings and weekends if I need to write or receive an offer?
2. If you are busy, do you have team members you can turn to if something urgent comes up?
3. Do you publish your cell phone number to other agents? If not, why not?
4. How do you balance your time when working with multiple client offers at the same time?

If your agent is unwilling or lax about being reachable after business hours, find yourself another agent. You don’t want to miss opportunities just because your agent is afraid of solicitor calls.

In today’s real estate market, selling a home can be a challenge. Homes are staying on the market for lengthy periods of time, buyers are able to be picky, and the inventory of homes remains high. As real estate agents, we are out in the market everyday working with buyers and sellers. We consistently see sellers ignoring important factors that can prevent their home from selling. Here are some things to avoid when selling your home.

1. Unrealistic price – Prices have come down nationwide. It can be hard to stomach the lower price, particularly if you stand to lose money. However, an accurate price is the single most important factor to getting a home sold in a reasonable amount of time. Work with your real estate agent and develop a realistic price range based on recent sales in your neighborhood. If you are aggressive with your price, you will attract the attention of buyers.
2. Clean, Clean, Clean – Homes need to be neat and tidy when they are listed for sale. Buyers love new construction because they don’t have to deal with someone else’s mess. The funny smell from the dinner you cooked last night or the soap scum on your bathtub are sure to turn off a segment of your buyers, but it is so easy to fix.
3. Neglected Repairs – Are there nagging and obvious repairs needed in your house? If you notice them all of the time, you can be guaranteed that potential buyers will notice as well. The home doesn’t need to be perfect, but spend the time and money to make these repairs, or be willing to when requested by buyers. Today’s buyers want a great price and a home in great condition.
4. Poor Photos – Almost all buyers search for homes online first. If you don’t have dazzling professional photos in your listing, you will not attract buyers for an in-person showing. Without an in-person showing, your home will never sell. It is that simple.
5. Marketing Basics – There are some basics that your agent needs to provide. Is the flyer box in your yard stocked with current flyers? Has your agent posted the home in all of the online marketing websites? This is all simple but essential work that needs to happen to get your home sold.
6. Ignoring Your Competition – You need to be aware of what else is listed for sale near your home. You may have a great home at a very reasonable price, but if a builder has new construction down the street, your home needs to compete with a better price or more amenities, otherwise buyers will pick the competition over you. Spend some time with your agent and pretend you are a buyer. Go and see homes that will compete with yours, take notes, and make sure that the home you are selling beats the competition with a combination of price, condition and amenities.
7. Not Giving Access – I’ve written about this before. Remember that buyers do not live by your schedule. If they want to see the home at a reasonable time, LET THEM SEE IT. Even if it is inconvenient for you, LET THEM SEE IT. Your home will never sell unless buyers take a look inside.
8. You Chose the Wrong Listing Agent – Not all real estate agents are created equal. A poor listing agent will allow you to overprice the home to get the listing. They will do little to market the home, and will be unresponsive to interest from other agents. Interview a few agents before choosing the one to list your home.
9. Buying the Wrong Home to Start With – Not much you can do about this one once you own the home, but if you focus on resale when you buy a home, you will prevent future heartache. You can’t change the location of your home, and a bad location today will be that much worse in a down market. Same thing for a home with a funky, unconventional floor plan. You can make cosmetic fixes, but an unappealing floor plan is difficult or impossible to change.

It is no secret that we are currently in a buyer’s market. Home inventory is high and it is taking a much longer time to sell than it used to. Buyers are in a better position to negotiate and ask for discounts and usually don’t have to worry about competing with another offer. However, in the last week, we brought two listings on the market in Seattle that blew away our expectations. We had two offers on each house within two days, with multiple parties requesting an opportunity to submit a backup offer. Both homes were also bid up substantially over their list price. For a moment, it felt like a return of the seller’s market from a couple of years ago. Why did it happen? Is the market turning around? Are buyers suddenly re-entering the market? I don’t think so. It was a case of two homes at the right price and in the right location that catered to bargain hunters. Clearly there are buyers out there ready to pounce on a great deal. As a home seller, it is helpful to look at the situation for each of these homes and think about what you can do to drive similar excitement on your own listing.

• Home #1 – We listed a 1920’s home in Wallingford, a popular neighborhood close to downtown Seattle. The seller had started a massive remodeling project, but never finished. All of the expensive work was done, such as a new roof, new plumbing, new foundation and new electrical. However, the seller never finished the flooring and trim work. Cosmetically the home was not attractive at all, and we actively worried about the impression that buyers would have with no flooring. We did our best with professional photos and making sure the house was clean. However, our aggressive sub-$400k price point was the magic that brought buyers in the door.  The goal with our pricing was to make sure that even after a buyer spent $20-30k, the home would still be an exceptional value for the neighborhood. It worked! We had 100 agents view the listing online during the first day, and had 24 agents show the home in the first two days! After two days, we had two offers for more than list price and quickly were able to secure a buyer.
• Home #2 – We listed a 1940’s Cape Cod in North Seattle. The home was in reasonably good condition and had clearly been remodeled in the last few years. However, while it was in a convenient location, it was quite close to a major arterial. Our seller acquired the property at a foreclosure auction and had enough equity that he was able to price it for a quick sale. In fact, he wanted it to sell in the first couple of weeks and was willing to price it even lower than we recommended. He spent a few thousand dollars to straighten up the place and make the yard look sharp. We followed up with professional photos and a comprehensive online marketing campaign. We had 54 agents view the property online, 36 of them show it, and then two competing offers that drove up the price after two days.

As a seller, what can you learn from these home sales?

1. Price it to sell – Even in a slow real estate market, every home has a price that will bring out buyers, and if it is aggressive enough, it will bring out lots of buyers. Pay particular attention to “psychological price barriers”. The difference in traffic between a home listed at $299,950 and $310,000 can be very substantial.
2. Make it look sharp – If the home has rough spots, do everything you can to make it look good. A few thousand dollars spent on paint, landscaping or cleaning will go a long way towards getting you a quick offer. Put away your point-and-shoot camera and make sure that your real estate agent gets a set of professional photos taken for your listing. The only way to secure a buyer is to first attract them to your online photos.
3. Buy in locations with intrinsic value – When buying a home, try to remember that you need to sell the home some day. By focusing on great neighborhoods and attractive locations, your job selling the home in the future is much easier.

There are a variety of ways to market a home that is for sale. One that immediately comes to mind is having your agent host an open house. In our market that mostly happens for a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Another variation is called a "broker's open house", which usually happens during the work week and gives agents a chance to preview new listings during times when they are not likely to be working with buyers. Many sellers will want open houses, but are they really effective to attract buyers? The short answer is that open houses are only modestly effective. Let's take a look at the pros & cons of hosting open houses.

Top reasons that we love Open Houses

1. Helps introduce a new listing - We like to host a broker's open house plus a regular open house when we get a new listing. This is a way to introduce a property to the local agent community and is a way to introduce the home to the neighborhood. Word of mouth from neighbors and agents can be a powerful marketing tool.
2. Lets the DIY buyers see the house without an appointment – There are buyers who aren’t regularly working with a real estate agent, so hosting an open house is a method for them to see the home without having to make an appointment. In our market, we frequently see buyers from the discount-broker Redfin who are directed to an open house so that they don’t have to send out one of their field agents for a home tour.
3. Connect with buyers looking for a real estate agent – It is very infrequent that a person who attends an open house ends up making an offer on that particular house. Many agents are willing to host an open house to try and gain new customers who are in the market to buy a home and may not have an agent. Yes, this is self-serving on the part of the agent, so as a seller you should recognize these motivations.

Top reasons that we hate Open Houses

1. Low success rate – The percentage of homes that are actually sold via open house is very, very small. Most homes are sold via private showings from a real estate agent. Before insisting on more open houses, talk with your real estate agent about the success rates they have seen when hosting open houses.
2. Difficult to advertise – In our market, brokers are very territorial about their open house listings and many are NOT posted to the local MLS. This means that there isn’t a single place to find out that an open house is scheduled. For example, if Broker A is hosting an open house, you can only find out about it on Broker A’s website, not on Broker B’s website. The misguided idea here is that if Broker A is spending marketing funds to promote their listings, why should they potentially direct buyers to open houses held by a competing broker.
3. Attendance is not reliable – We’ve advertised a bunch of different ways, and there is no reliable method to attract buyers to an open house. Despite identical advertising, one weekend you’ll see eight buyers and the next you’ll see zero.
4. Success depends on location – One of the best ways to have a successful open house is to be located in an urban neighborhood with good car and foot traffic. Homes in a rural or suburban area have very little off-the-street traffic and generally have much lower turnouts. Also, large condo complexes are very difficult. It is hard coordinating access through the lobby, and even more difficult to post signage for the open house in these large condos.

The bottom line is that open houses are only modestly effective to help sell a home. Our approach is to host an initial open house to introduce a home to the market and then assess future open houses based on ongoing traffic to the property. As a seller, you should recognize that there are other marketing methods that yield better results such as online advertising, staging and price incentives. If you are looking to list a home for sale, have a conversation with your listing agent about their complete marketing plan.