Selling A Home – When A First Viewing Is Not A First Viewing
Home sellers often get excited when their agent calls to let them know there is a buyer interested in viewing their home. The longer the home has been on the market, the greater the chance that excitement is tinged with relief as well. Sellers often go into overdrive to ready the home for that all important first viewing not realizing that, in reality, this could well be the buyer’s second viewing.
If you, or your real estate agent, have been diligent, then you will have placed plenty of photos on your MLS listing. The trend today is to spend hours slowly going through the MLS looking at listings, looking at the accompanying photos, and perhaps even looking at the home’s location using one of the search engine’s map features. Google has street views for most neighborhoods now so a potential buyer can virtually walk down a street looking at your home and those around you, all from the comfort of their homes.
Once a potential buyer arrives at your door, there is a fair chance they have already added your home to the probable list – the ‘in-person’ viewing is really to verify everything they have seen, especially in the photos you have provided with your MLS listing. At this point, as a seller, you need to be careful you don’t oversell your home. The buyer is there to verify what they have seen – so show them what they have seen. Don’t make major changes to rooms to the extent they no longer resemble what the potential buyer has already seen.
There is a lesson in this for all home sellers – take plenty of relevant photos that can be included in your listing. Home buying is no longer what it used to be. Potential buyers don’t go out and drive around looking at homes, they sit at home and surf around looking at homes so the more information they can find about your home the better. You may even want to consider a virtual tour.
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