The 3 Keys to Selling Your Home

In marketing jargon, we talk about the “Ps” of marketing: Product, Pricing, and Promotion.  The same goes for your home sale! It’s all about getting the product ready, pricing it right and getting it out there by promoting it. So here they are in more detail: the 3 keys to selling your home.

1. The Product: The House

To you, it’s your home. But to a potential buyer, it’s a house. The difference? Personal affiliation.

The key here is to get the product in good order before putting it on the market. To do that, you need to take a step back and evaluate it as an impartial observer would.

Consider carefully what repairs need to be done and do them. Clear clutter off of every horizontal surface and give your house the once-over with a hawk’s eye. Do paint touch-ups where necessary, and remove anything that personalizes the home too much.

It may feel sad, but you need to stage your home carefully in order to allow another family to imagine themselves there.

Getting a seller’s home inspection done prior to putting up the For Sale sign is a great step for building goodwill with potential buyers. It shows you have taken care to make sure the house is fit to sell.

2. Pricing: Get it Right

One of the biggest mistakes home sellers make is to price their house too high. Again, it’s about being impartial!

Get a professional pricing appraisal done and look at how much comparable properties in your neighborhood have sold for. Use these as your guide for getting the price right.

Pricing your home for sale too high can mean the difference between a quick sale and sitting on the market for weeks or months.

3. Promotion: Advertise Your Sale

Now that you’ve got the house cleaned up and priced right, it’s time to get the word out!

Presumably, you’ve listed your house for sale online. To sell a home in Canada, the best way to get online exposure is to list your home for sale on REALTOR.ca.

Once you have a link to an online listing, you can share it across social media. Be sure to make it compelling and use some awesome photos (another P right there!) of your home to showcase it.

Perhaps the most important part of promoting your home for sale is putting up a great professional-looking lawn sign. Hosting open house visits is another great way to get the word out.

Also, create a one-page feature sheet of your home with a nice photo, some key information and your contact information. Put these up around your community and keep your phone line open for calls!

Author Bio

Jane Kennedy tweets and blogs about selling a house in Canada and Canadian real estate for the ComFree network based in Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.