Under ideal conditions, a home will remain on the market a short time and find a buyer quickly. An even better experience occurs when potential buyers get into a bidding war to secure the property. Receiving high bids that meet or exceed your home’s asking price isn’t a sure thing, even in California’s healthy real estate market. Understanding how to sell your house in California to the highest bidder may very well help you sell your home above the market average.
List Your Home at the Right Time
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The season in which you choose to sell your home will likely impact its final sale price, and the day of the week you list your home may even influence or encourage early activity on the listing. Many sellers choose summer to sell, but statistics from the California Association of Realtors reveal excellent sales activity well into other seasons.
For example, if you examine the month-to-month change in sales in the San Francisco Bay Area from November to December of 2015, you’ll see an 18% increase in overall sales activity. Additionally, the increase in sales from December 2014 to December 2015 shoes an overall increase of 13.5%. Summer remains popular for home sales, but California has shown healthy sales activity throughout fall and into the winter.
You may also want to time the moment your house appears on the California MLS for maximum impact with potential buyers. Real estate is an industry where buyer impressions significantly influence the level of interest and bids on a home. Buyers want to see a home that’s “fresh” and has had a for sale sign in the front yard for just a few days, if not just a few hours.
Listing your home close to the weekend will help you take advantage of the most active real estate day of the week: Saturday. For example, if you list your home on Thursday evening or Friday morning, your home will be on the market just one or two days before the weekend.
Conversely, if you list your home on Monday, your home will be on the market for five or six days by the time Saturday comes along. Although you may receive interest and offers immediately on your home even if you list it on Monday, you can boost the chance your future buyer will see the home by listing it late in the week.
Use a Real Estate Agent
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In any industry, professionals often cultivate a network of people in similar positions, and the real estate industry is no exception. Agents and brokers frequently interact with one another during negotiations. Your agent will help you get your house in front of as many eyes as possible, which will increase the likelihood of a quick offer or a bidding war.
Consider that a real estate agent’s focus is to sell properties. As a seller, you may have a job in an entirely different industry, and full-time employment doesn’t always pair well with the time investment required to sell a home and ensure it receives the highest bids possible.
Financial magazine Forbes reveals:
“A real estate agent’s full-time job is to act as a liaison between buyers and sellers. This means that he or she will have easy access to all other properties listed by other agents. Both the buyer’s and seller’s agent work full time as real estate agents and they know what needs to be done to get a deal together.”
Your real estate agent will have experience in negotiation and contracts, and their commission is well worth the investment. Real estate agents often specialize in certain types of real estate, or they may have experience selling homes in a particular neighborhood. Tap your agent’s wealth of knowledge and benefit from his or her sales expertise.
Research and Price Your Home Accordingly
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One of the most – if not the most – vital steps in selling your home is setting a sales price exactly where it needs to be to solicit offers and interest. If you live in a competitive market like San Francisco, don’t assume high sales activity means you can choose any price and expect to sell your home in a flash.
No matter the strength of your local real estate market and regional economy, research and smart pricing will open the door to rapid sales and fevered bidding activity.
Overpricing may actually have a deadly impact on your home sale. You might find that your buyer can’t finance the home because his or her bank refuses to appraise the home for the purchase price. Buyers may not even make offers in the first place if your home is priced too high, and your open house might turn into an empty house.
Additionally, an overpriced home may not receive adequate attention from real estate agents who want to avoid wasting their clients’ time. A poor pricing strategy might lead to a home that sits on the market for months and a seller who must take drastic measures to complete a sale.
Your real estate agent will help you choose a price for your home, but you’ll want to conduct research, too. A solid pricing strategy features the following:
- Take a look at market trends and similar homes that have recently sold in your neighborhood.
- Get your home inspected by a professional or have an appraisal conducted.
- Figure out the highest price you can choose and still have room for negotiation.
Before Your Home Reaches the MLS
After you’ve partnered with a real estate agent and conducted pricing research, a few last steps will ensure you receive serious bids for your home. If everything goes well, you might even see interest and bidding activity before your home arrives officially on the market.
You or your real estate agent may take care of these responsibilities, which include getting the home professionally staged, hosting an open house immediately after the home is put up for sale, and creating a unique website for your property.
