How to sell your Residential Property
Wanna get the most out of your residential property? Well, here’re some strategies that you can consider
Buying cheap is only ½ right, selling right determines your profitability.
You can get to see all kinds of funny, weird, dishonest people when you sell your own property. It is a good exposure and you will learn more about humanity + more street smart from this experience than schooling + a better price. Good luck.[/QUOTE]
Wanna get the most out of your residential property? Well, here’re some strategies that you can consider
- Buyer is the one paying your property, not property agent. To close a deal, property agents must make you sell cheaper, so, do not expect a property agent to sing praises for your unit. In all honesty, they will tell you more shortcomings of your unit that than buyer; that is their job. Therefore, when they speak to you, bear in mind that they don’t love you.
. - I assure you that you will never get the best price for your unit when you appoint an exclusive agent. Exclusive agents can promise you the sun and the moon but once you appointed them as your exclusive agent, the game is half-won for them. In short, they have no incentive to protect your interests going forward. Always declare the sale of your unit, free-for-all / open for all agents. In this way, all the agents will have equal incentive to convince the buyers to offer a higher price, as much as they want you to lower selling price. In addition, you will get maximum exposure because you can get more agents to promote you unit online or in classified ads which will translate to greater buying interests.
. - Next, do a bit of homework when you price your unit. You just need to price the same as others initially (given the same size and level) and enquiries will naturally appear. No point putting up the lowest price because you are not selling shares in stock market. No two units are 100% similar, you can have the lowest list-price but the buyer will still visit other similar units in the same estate with a 3-10% budget tolerance for a more suitable choice because of hidden factors such as neighbours, facings, move-in condition,
. - Be firm about commission and confirms it before any viewing. It is only fair if you pay agent commissions but those who ask more than 1% are simply not respecting you. If your property is worth more than $2.5m, 0.5% commission is also acceptable. Don’t worry that you don’t know the paper work because you will always need to appoint a lawyer (not property agent) to close a property transaction and your lawyer will have some kind of templates/forms for you to close your sale. If you are lucky, maybe you will get to deal direct with buyer and save on commissions (but shrewd buyers will usually bring their own agents to get some kick-backs from the commission).
. - Usually it takes 3-6mths to offload a unit for the best price. To get some exposures initially; place small classified ads on newspapers for 2-3 consecutive weekends and gradually reduce to once a month. Property agents do maintain a large in-house database of available units so you don’t have to keep putting up ads.
. - Please organize weekend viewings at specific timings (eg 2-5pm). Most of the people viewing your units are not serious buyers. Some people are just hobbyist viewers. Please do not waste time accommodating to less-convenient timeslots because buying a property is not buying buns; serious buyers will genuinely wait to see your unit if they have already shortlisted your price/estate to make a more informed decision.
. - It is ok to accommodate second-viewing requests for serious buyers as the involvement of more family-members and friends can aid the buyer’s decision process. Of course, if the offer price is too much below your target price, then don’t waste time.
. - Agents need to smoke you, pressure you, lie to you to make you sell. Please understand that the agent only spends time smoking you because your unit has demand, therefore you must learn to ignore the criticisms and stories that they tell you. Just pay attention to price negotiations.
. - Property agents are going to start calling you during price negotiations. Property agents are taught to act busy and missed your calls because it will create anxiety. Likewise, you must also learn not to answer calls immediately from property agents who had begun negotiations with you to increase their anxiety. Many agents are very high-handed in their negotiations with you and for these jerks, just apologize to them politely for missing their calls because you were attending to another viewing earlier. Doing so, occasionally, will remind the rouge agents that their buyers are not the sole interested-party and all property agents hate missing out on closing deals if they are close.
Buying cheap is only ½ right, selling right determines your profitability.
You can get to see all kinds of funny, weird, dishonest people when you sell your own property. It is a good exposure and you will learn more about humanity + more street smart from this experience than schooling + a better price. Good luck.[/QUOTE]
