The National Association of Realtors (NAR) wrote existing-home sales fell by at least 3.5% in April 2021. Why? There are several factors you might want to note as a home seller. Each affects the possibility of enticing homebuyers.
For one, your neighborhood might fall in the middle of a shortage of real estate demand. You could suffer from New York’s rising property taxes. Or, there are various other areas that we’ll cover. All of which could deter prospective buyers from handing you a down payment.
The above doesn’t mean you can never sell your home. You have to weave creative strategies into your real estate marketing campaigns! Read along as we explore alternative ways to sell a house and potentially find cash buyers where you can sell a house fast in Arlington.
Why Selling a House Can Be Tough
Aside from the documents you need to sell your house by yourself, you may be facing other problems as well.
Maybe you’ve had your home on the housing market for too long, yet, you don’t know what you’re doing wrong. When posting your listing, you possibly made a mistake.
You might need to make adjustments. The first step to escaping this loop is to troubleshoot your current listing. Find any issues you could fix to improve your home’s attractiveness.
Here are five reasons why selling a house can be tough and potential remedies:
- Too much clutter. A future buyer can’t visualize their living situation in your home if it’s filled with your old wares. Consider decluttering and staging your home to attract buyers during your open house.
- Unreasonable asking price. Don’t rely on websites that provide pricing for real estate outside your area. Only consult reliable local sources for the best time to sell your house at your asking price. Furthermore, investigate the supply and demand in your area to see how your pricing compares to other homes.
- It lacks curb appeal and repairs. It’s difficult for buyers to commit if there are existing technical and cosmetic issues with your home. Consider lowering your prices or outsourcing repairs. Doing so will lower their upfront repair expenses and increase your home’s market value.
- Not in a good location. Prospective buyers don’t want to drive an hour to get to school or a grocery store. They also don’t want to blow their money to live in a crime- and pollution-ridden area.
- Lack of marketing mediums. How can a potential buyer tour your home if they don’t know it’s for sale? Consider expanding where you post your listing. For example, extend beyond Zillow and Craigslist. Dive into multiple listing services.
Try These Alternative Ways to Sell A House
Whether you’re a realtor or want to take a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) approach, you’ll need more ways to promote your listing.
Let’s explore five nontraditional home selling techniques and why they could work.
Let Homebuyers Stay the Night
So, the potential homeowners are serious. However, they might need a push to decide whether they want to purchase your home.
While you or your realtor can tell the buyer every detail about your home, they might need to experience what it would be like to live in your home. Learn how your home’s appliances would regularly run. Decide whether they will get along with the neighbors.
When preparing your home for overnight buyers, be sure to follow these tips:
- Ensure prospective buyers sign a waiver. Any event could happen while they’re staying overnight in your house. Protect yourselves from any legal liability issues. Have them sign a document that relinquishes your responsibility.
- Search for accommodations. Find yourself a hotel room or homestay for the night.
- Screen your potential buyer. Make sure they have the funds to pay for your home if they decide to close the deal.
- Notify your neighbors. That way, they aren’t in for any nasty surprises and don’t call the police.
The main downside to letting a potential homebuyer stay the night at your place is that their stay cuts into the number of days you can host an open house.
Advertise Your House on Social Media
Over 70% of Americans use at least one social media outlet. Use this statistic to your advantage.
If you have a Facebook account, consider searching for local groups where you can list your home. That way, someone looking for a home in Texas will have an easier time finding homes in Texas. If you’re a real estate agent, create your own group! It’s easy.
Speaking of, dive deeper into immersing your buyers by taking and posting 360 photos.
You can also advertise your home on YouTube. That way, if a prospective buyer typed “Homes in Texas”, your home might come up in the search results.
We recommend the following tips to optimize your house advertisement on social media:
- Invest in ads. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Quora, and more, all websites that offer ads to vendors. Take nice pictures of your home, craft a short yet precise description, and create your ads. Don’t forget to A/B test—different variations of the same ad.
- Video tours. Giving homebuyers a deeper look into your home increases their trust in you. Recording video tours will also likely lead them into the next step of the journey—an in-person house tour. You can take your video tour further by investing or borrowing in a drone to record aerial footage.
- High-quality photos. Do what it takes to present potential buyers the best quality possible. Borrow a camera that can take 4K photos.
Use Influential People to Promote Your House
The average billion-dollar company spends over $750,000 a year on influencer campaigns.
Why? People want entertainment. Furthermore, they want reviews or recommendations they can trust—word-of-mouth does both.
How should you go about searching for an influencer? First, take note of what demographic you want to target. For example, do you prefer selling your home to families or professionals?
After researching who you want to attract, you’ll need to know the available influencer options. There are at least three categories: micro-, macro-, and mega-influencers. Micro-influencers have the smallest audience, and mega has the largest. You can work within one type or mix it up with several.
To find influential people in Texas, you’ll want to explore various social media posts and groups. Afterward, send them a message and see if you both can agree on marketing terms.
Host an Event at Your House
A surefire way to immerse buyers and potentially score a sale is to up your selling options by setting up an event at your home to show them around.
When planning an open house, it might be in your best interest to leave it up to a brokerage. While using a real estate agent can ruin the authenticity of the sale, it prevents awkward scenarios. Like what? You could accidentally state something about the house that turns the buyer away. Or, the prospective buyer might have a harder time envisioning themselves in your home with you inside.
By opting for a brokerage, they’ll give your listing more exposure within their networks.
To prepare yourself for hosting an event at your home, use the following tips:
- Extra curb appeal. First impressions, they might make or break your sale. You’ll want to impress the open house attendees before they enter the front door. Invest a little time into tidying your front yard—trim the hedges, paint the front porch, or pull weeds.
- Open yourself to feedback. Your realtor will share any comments or criticisms said by the buyers once the open house is over. If the recommendations are within your control, implement them to entice the next batch of buyers.
- Stage your home. You might have to invest in rental furniture and plants throughout the house. Staging will create a more inviting environment for buyers. Listen to your agent’s recommendations if they have any.
- Clean. Deep clean your home and eliminate any fingerprints, streaks, mold, and stains. If you don’t have the time to clean, outsource. Find a Texas cleaning service or use an app to hire a professional cleaner.
- Smell. Ensure no funny smells are roaming your home. Air out your house—run an air purifier or dehumidifier if you must.
Virtual Tours are Now a Thing
If you want to dodge the stress of setting up a meeting with prospective buyers within a restrictive time frame, there’s a solution. What are virtual home tours? They’re digitized panoramas of your house to showcase your home’s features.
Instead of a real estate agent nudging your buyer through an open house, they can comfortably explore the features they want most. Furthermore, buyers can have a better idea of how to plan their future living situation.
If your home isn’t ready yet, you can adjust the virtual tour to present your home in a finished state that would come off as more attractive to buyers.
A lot of virtual tour software on the market gives your buyers various interactive features. Some include details about building materials, amenities, mortgage calculators, and more. Shop around until you find what features suit you.
The best part about virtual reality (VR) tours is that they’re available 24/7. Moreover, virtual tours are convenient for those relocating to Texas from overseas. They can immerse themselves into your home and get a feel of things before making a decision.
Conclusion
To entice future homebuyers and get through the thick shells of buyer’s agents, you will have to get a little creative. Since we’re in an age where technology’s prevalent in our daily activities, it allows us to venture where we couldn’t go in the past. Whether you’re a realtor or FSBO, you could expose your home to tens of thousands of potential buyers.
Now buyers can find your listing from some of their favorite people (influencers). Afterward, they could tour your home through their computer or smartphone.
If you want the most exposure to your listed home, consider mixing all the alternative ways to sell a house in Texas that we listed. At that point, you should have a sale in no time.