Welcome to Homebuyer's School
brought to you by Brookfield Residential.
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Homebuyer's School.
Today I'm joined by Kevin French with Remax Realty,
and the question we're gonna answer today is:
"What is the best way to sell my home?"
So Kevin, what is the process or the steps required to sell my house?
The steps required vary on who you decide to work with but
I'm gonna go over my steps because I think that they're pretty good.
Step one for listing the property is I have
my designer go into the home.
She meets with the homeowners and
she goes through and preps the property
for sale with them, so might be there for
an hour and a half, sometimes
three and a half hours and then she
goes through and says, you know,
get rid of this, change that, that art is
too bright, make it more neutral, repaint
that wall, potentially change that furniture
out. She tries to work with what they have
so that we're not increasing the cost for
the seller, but then they can make small
changes around the property to make it
show on its best light. Essentially, try and
make it look like a show home. So
that's one. Then, after the property is
prepped and the sellers have taken their
time to do whatever they need to do,
then we have it professionally measured
so that it's being appropriately marketed
and not deceiving, and it's being marketed
its largest square footage and we're not
under marketing it to some extent. That
also, at the same time, we do the
photography - so the photographer goes
through (it's all professional photography)
depending on the type of the property,
if it's a darker home, we will shoot it during
the day. If it's a lighter home, then we
have the option, depending on time of
of year we'll shoot twilight. So that ranges
when sun's going down; sometimes
it's 11 o'clock at night and we're in the
summer but then the property shows
and stands out from all its competition in
the area. Then, once the property is on the
market, it gets listed on MLS, then we
have online marketing of course, boosted
social media and includes Instagram and
Facebook and then we have retargeted
marketing as well so the property will
create a little ad that will show up on
Global News, Yahoo.ca, whatever it may be.
Various sites that when you
Google "properties Calgary", "Auburn Bay
properties Calgary", "Citadel", whatever
area it may be, then houses within that
area, it'll just continuously pop up on there.
So then, just for people who don't know, retargeting is: people who go to a
specific website, if you retarget off them, people who go to the website, they'll see
the ad on various other different platforms for things you've seen.
So you've probably seen it on Amazon: so if you have bought, if you were
looking at, say, a new pair of shoes, that pair of shoes you might see
that on different platforms whether it's on Facebook or whether you're navigating
through the web too. Any other steps? Well now, the property is live and it's
being appropriately marketed, now we go
to, of course, there's a sign, a for sale
sale sign up in front of the property,
open houses are up to the seller,
obviously we encourage one or two, but
not one every weekend, and then we
obtain the feedback which is one of the
most important things for the selling process
and monitor the competition so what you
listed when you review the competition
and you listed at "X" price on day one, day 14, four more properties may be
the exact same they're just listed for significantly less, so you have to
monitor that and adjust, but also work with the feedback.
What is the client doing while this is happening? What are some of the things
that they can do to help? Everything our designer says. So, keep
the house in show ready condition. We often have buyers come through and ask
if the property is vacant. "No it's not, the sellers actually live there, we've just
we've just prepared, we've made it look like this so that you're not getting
caught up, you're not walking through the home and looking at personal photos,
which is number one that always comes up. You know, looking at someone's trip to
Cuba, you're not looking at their extremely bright and potentially
aggressive art that is taking your attention away. We want to keep it
neutral, we want people to walk through the home and look at the home, that's
what they're there to look at, not personal things.
So how is that for the person currently living in the home? That's a little tough
right? Because you know they still have to use the house. So it's a little tough
tough to, you know, keep the house in that condition, while at the same time living
in the house, right? Yeah, it's it's a lot of work but, you know,
I tell my clients when they're struggling with that, we have two options:
We can do that and sell sooner for more money, or we can just reduce the price
and you don't have to take care of anything.
Which, it's just, it's very blunt but it's a stark reality that if I just do this,
I might make ten thousand more dollars, maybe I should just do that.
It is work though, there's no doubt about it.
Is it always a recommendation, maybe to have the the person selling the house
live somewhere else? Does that help? Maybe for other people it won't be -
it might not be an option.
No, that might be extreme but I had a case recently which every property that's
listed is unique to itself, so the the selling process is also molded, so what I've just
explained isn't necessarily what everybody would get. So this property
was a slightly older home, older furniture, parts of the home were vacant because
the children had moved out, so I decided to; and they had the option and they were
intending on moving out, so I said, "Well, just move everything out and then we
virtually staged the property so the photographer still shoots it but then they
add the furniture in every single room so that someone can see how the space
can be utilized, because that's something that a lot of people have a hard time
getting past. They walk through the home and they can't imagine where their TV is
gonna go, or how their sofa is gonna fit in here, how the dining room table is going
to work. By virtually staging it, it shows incredibly well online, but then when
they get there and the furniture's not there, the seller didn't incur the cost
of 2, 2500, 3000 dollars a month of physically but yet the buyer still has
the photos and they can see how it's gonna look.
Yes. Any other steps? It varies. When something needs to
be done, we do it. So if someone is out of the country, for example,
we go by and we clean the floors after there's a showing. We hire cleaners
for properties that may need it because the person has a busy lifestyle,
a couple children or whatever it may be. Whatever needs to be done,
we'll just do that. Great. Anything else to add?
No, that's good.
Great, well thank you very much for joining us and we'll see you next time.
That's another edition of
Homebuyer's School. Tune in next time
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