How yummy do your houses look?

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The other day I stopped in to KFC for lunch when Tim & I were out looking at some properties to put offers on. I don’t know about you, but when I go to a fast food restaurant (which isn’t very often anymore) I usually tend to order the same thing, so I don’t need to look at the menu. But this day was different…Tim was outside on the cell phone, and I stood for about 10 minutes staring at the menu board…it wasn’t because I was trying to decide what I wanted, it was because I was enthralled by the fancy new LCD TV screen menu boards. Yep! They were actual big-screen TV’s up on the wall that were changing images and scrolling through the different menu items. I was in a trance, and I didn’t even know why!

Then it hit me…the bucket of chicken on the TV actually had hot, tasty steam coming off it! The graphics were amazing, and there was actually a little puff of moving steam on the chicken! I wanted to order the bucket because it LOOKED so amazing, even though there were only 2 of us! It was almost like subliminal advertising…I wasn’t even in the market for a bucket, but I was actually craving it because they made it look so yummy!

Are your buyers experiencing the same thing when they look at your houses and listings?
Does the house look SOOOOOO Yummy that they want to buy it even if they weren’t in the market to buy a house? If not, maybe that’s why it’s not selling. Let’s look at some little things to see if you’re “yummy” enough…

Curb Appeal: When they pull up to your house (or look at pictures) does their mouth start to water and they WANT IT! If you don’t see anything wrong with the curb appeal, invite a disinterested 3rd party over to give you a review. When I was a “regular” buyer, I remember not even getting out of the car with our Realtor if I didn’t like the looks of it from the outside.

Tickle all of their senses: at KFC, I was already hungry, then I smelled the fried chicken, then they visually showed me the food in an appealing manner. Are YOU prepping your houses to hit all of your buyer’s senses? Plush carpet that they sink into, vanilla-scented air fresheners in several parts of the house (avoid florals, some people are allergic), a beach ball floating in the pool, nice music playing, a romantic fireplace, an (empty) bottle of wine and 2 glasses on the counter…are you getting the picture?

Make it easy to do business with you: Isn’t it easy to just order a #5? Make it that easy to buy your house too. Some ways you can do that are:
Have the house pre-inspected- this assures them that what they’re buying will not cause them problems in the future
Refer them to a GOOD mortgage broker if they don’t already have one
Offer owner financing to make their lives easier (in their eyes)
Make it easy to track you down if they need further info
Have the house ready to move into (is your whole punch-list finished?)

And here’s the thing to remember…you DON’T need to be the lowest price in the market to sell, you need to be the BEST for the money that you’re asking.

Happy Selling!