Key Factors in Selling:

The four most important factors in effectively marketing and selling your home
for maximum value in the shortest amount of time are:

List Price
Professional Listing and Marketing
Staging
Accessability


List Price:

No matter how great your home looks, if it's priced too high no one will buy it.  Buyers are smart and savvy, and buyers ultimately determine the value of your home when you sell it.  Buyers are in the market, shopping with their own Buyer Agent.  Buyers see first-hand what is on the market and what the prices are, so when before considering making an offer on a home they will always feel comfortable with what they think the value might be.  The buyer agent, meanwhile, uses recent sold data to help their clients establish what fair-market-value on any particular home is.  So buyers are getting educated on what is out there and what homes cost, and through their experiences and comparisons they will ultimately decide what, to them, is a good value. 

Just as you, the seller, don't want to give your home away for less than it's worth, buyers have seen the other homes on the market and they do not want to pay more than they think it's worth.  Just as the buyer agent uses recent "sold" data to determine what his clients should pay, I use the same data to prepare your Comparative Market Analysis to establish a list price range for your home. 

A realtor's Comparative Market Analysis is an important tool to use, but it is trying to predict the future based on past "sold" activity.  Today's buyers determine tomorrow's "sold" values.  List Price is the most critical part of the selling process because no matter what other conditions may exist in the home, whether it requires repairs, or if its in a less-than-desirable location, if it's priced appropriately ANY objection can be overcome, and if it's priced too high any buyer and buyer agent will know.


Professional Listing and Marketing:

Even if your home is priced appropriately, if it's not listed and marketed well, no one will see it, and if they do they will eliminate it from consideration if it is represented poorly.

At a minimum, correctly listing a property for sale in the Listing System entails completing ALL of the required and non-required information, providing additional details important to buyers and buyer agents, and providing the maximum allowable number of pictures.

You'd be surprised how many million-dollar homes are listed with only one or two poor quality pictures and many blank spaces where features, amenity information, and property descriptions should be.  If the listing information is not completely filled out and 12 good quality images not provided, your home will be overlooked by buyers and agents when selecting homes to go view.

Staging:

An important part of the sales process is showing your home to it's greatest potential.  A professional stager will evaluate your home and make decorating, furnishing, and landscaping your home to have the greatest curb-appeal and make the best impression inside and out. 

Don't take suggestions personally, just consider that the goal is to make your home as appealing as possible to the greatest number of potential buyers, and we each have different tastes and preferences.  Elvis's Jungle Room is one of the highlights of Graceland, but not everyone wants one in their home.

The home should be warm and inviting while making the most of the space, layout, and lighting.  As with any skill, professional decorators who do this for a living have developed a fine-tuned sense of style that can really increase your home's "Wow" factor.  First impressions are important, and the more comfortable potential buyers feel in the home the more likely they are to say "Yes!" 


Accessability:

If you were going out to look at homes, would you rather go see several homes at once that you can visit on 30 minutes notice or no notice at all, or would you prefer to schedule a visit to each individual home during certain select times over many trips? 

Most people, buyers and agents included, are busy, and there are a LOT of homes out there to see. 
To make the best use of everyone's time, agents and buyers go visit several homes, usually 4 to 6 per trip, all at once.  If your home is listed as "by appointment only" or with limited showing hours, there is a good chance that it won't be shown at all, or at least not as often as if it were listed as "Call First- GO" with about 30 minutes or an hour notice, since buyers and agents both know that there are plenty of other homes on the market.  And if it's not shown, it won't be sold. 

Agents are used to calling ahead for access to cause as little disruption as possible to the owners, but restrictive showing requirements are a sure-fire way to keep your home "For Sale" rather than "Sold."  Even if your home is gorgeous, priced appropriately, and staged and marketed properly, if potential buyers don't come inside you'll never sell it.  Default settings on lockboxes to allow key access are from 9am to 9pm 7 days a week.  Of course, certain conditions may require limited showing availability, but making your home accessible is critical to getting it sold quickly.