Want a fast home sale? Here are 5 tried and true ways to make it happen.

1. List with an experienced realtor – An experienced agent knows how to price your home competitively, and in line with how an appraiser will value your home. Ultimately, the agent wants to position your home apart from the others to sell as quickly as possible and an acutely competitive price point is the best way to achieve this outcome. In addition to pricing to sell, an experienced agent also knows that they will need to meet the appraiser if your home is unique and share with them exactly how the he or she set the sales price. An experienced agent would never leave this to chance.

2. Don’t over price the home – This is the single most, biggest mistake that sellers make and ultimately what happens is the home sits too long, buyers avoid it and when the price finally drops to meet the marketplace demand the seller is now in a weak negotiating position. Buyers can see how long a house has been on the market and they know that the longer a house is up for sale the more eager the sellers become to sell. When you become eager and anxious to sell you lose bargaining power. The risk just outweighs the reward on this one, so just avoid doing it.

3. Make showings easy – If at all possible avoid the 24 hour notice for showings.  Well it’s not pretty but it’s true, the easier it is to show the more likely other agents will show it. If a buyer has a list of 7 homes that they want to see tomorrow or they send the list over to their agent the morning of the afternoon they have available to go shopping, guess what? They want to see those homes that same day. Strike while the iron is hot and sometimes the 24 hour notice cools the iron or the appointments get cancelled altogether because the buyer only has a limited time frame to shop in. Sure they might come back tomorrow but why weaken your market position if you can avoid it.

4. Allow your real estate agent to pre-market your home before it hits the MLS – We encourage all of our sellers to allow us to take pictures of the home, even if it’s not 100% ready, we know what to capture and what  to avoid, that will still get buyers excited about seeing the home. We market these homes as “Coming Soon” or pocket listings. Buyers love to get the inside scoop and to be first to the punch, especially in a market where the lack of inventory prevails.

5. Choose an agent that has a large, active and responsive list of potential buyers and past clients and good relationships with other agents – This is something that most sellers are not thinking about and many realtors lack but its a super leg up for you when you’re looking to sell your home.

First, when your agent has an active list of buyers who are in the market for a home and is actively sending them new, fresh information and “Coming Soon” homes, those buyers pay attention and are likely to see your home before it hits the MLS. Ask your prospective agent if and how they can pre-market your home.

Secondly, when your agent has a good reputation and is well known and liked in the real estate community other agents often prefer to work with them. I can’t tell you how many times I have had a contract presented and accepted over other contracts with a higher sales price just for the mere fact that the agent worked with me before and knew that the chance of it closing was higher if the seller worked with my client and I. Check your prospective agent’s referrals out before you commit to working with anyone.

As you can see this isn’t your typical list of to do’s to sell your home, it’s not the vanilla flavored article you would normally find on the internet about how to go about choosing an agent or selling your home more quickly. Instead, these 5 tips are crucial to you becoming a ninja at hiring a professional who has a tried and true track record, who is going to make selling your home a pleasant experience. After closing several hundreds of homes in the past 17 years I’ve learned a great deal about what works and what doesn’t. I hope you find these tips valuable and that you put them to good use. When it comes to hiring a true professional to sell your home refer to this list. If you are thinking about selling real estate in St. Petersburg or Tampa Bay put us on your team and see the difference that hiring a Top 1% agent will make for you.