(Frequently Asked Questions)
If you are are thinking of selling your home or investment property, there are a lot of questions that may come to mind and it can all be very daunting. The good news is that you are not alone. Below we have shared our most frequently asked questions.
Videos are a really powerful marketing tool when done properly. A proper marketing video, gives added value, not just a slideshow of existing photos. For instance, videos are great way to showcase to buyers what the house looks like in 3D. It gives an extra dimension. It shows features and benefits that you may otherwise not be able to pick up from the ad copy or the images. If you’d like to know more about how to do videos that enhances the buyer experience so they are going to enquire, and they’re going to put an offer in, do get in touch.
They are really easy to fix, but yet, they are really, really important.
The thing to keep in mind is that you want your home to be as light and bright as possible, and that’s why I recommend using cool lights.
Easy to fix. Just a trip to the shops and get some new light bulbs.
Here are 3 easy ways you can increase the appeal of your home when selling.
1) The first one is to declutter. You don’t want a house that’s messy, but you also want to make sure that your home is light and bright. You want to remove items from the benches, especially in the kitchen to make the bench space look bigger. You also want to remove your fridge magnets and you want to depersonalise your home.
Another thing that is also worthwhile, is taking the personal images, pictures, etc, off the walls and replacing it with something that’s a bit more generic or vanilla, if you like.
2) The second thing is light, no one likes a dark home. So, an easy way to get around that is quite often just simply change the light bulbs to something that is a cold light, preferably, rather than a warm light and something that’s got a bit of a punch.
3) The third one takes a bit more effort but it’s definitely something that can make a huge difference. Painting is very effective. You can obviously do it yourself if you want to save money, you’re good at it and you have the time. Or alternatively get a painter in. It could cost less than you think, and it’s definitely worthwhile doing.
In short, everything, but keep in mind that if the contract of sale has no special conditions, the property is actually sold in ‘as is’ condition.
An example of something that quite often is excluded is the reticulation, simply because it is very fickle and it can very easily break down. So the seller may may want to exclude the reticulation to avoid the extra work just before moving out.
However, you’ve got to be careful of not excluding too many things because it will otherwise put off prospective buyers.
A property valuation is carried out by a licensed valuer and it is something that’s going to be used if you are refinancing, or you’re purchasing a property, where you need to get bank involved.
It is something that will cost money.
A property appraisal is provided by a real estate agent and they are free. They both establish a value or approximate value of the property with the possibility of listing the property for sale.
Assuming that finance is already approved, you would want to allow a minimum of 21 days for the bank to prepare the mortgage documents for the purchaser, and to prepare the discharge documents for the seller. However, if both parties are using cash, you could settle within a couple of days.
If you’re unsure it’s best to seek advice from your real estate agent or your settlement agent, because if you do not allow enough time, you could incur penalty interest.
Things like air conditioning units, ovens, fixtures that are bolted to the home will stay.
If you have pot plants, you can take them with you. If it’s a tree, it’s in the ground. It therefore stays with the home.
Another way to think about it is if you take your home, you turn it upside down what will still be in there? The personal belongings will be gone but what is left stays with the home.
The short answer is yes.
It could even mean that the buyer takes responsibility of the rubbish, the chattels, furniture, etc that normally will be removed at seller’s expense at settlement.
However, this makes it less attractive to a prospective buyer.
Especially, if the buyer is not able to have it subject to building and pest inspection. So to get around that, it might be worthwhile spending a couple hundred dollars getting building and pest inspection done up front and provide that to the buyer.
This scenario, can become quite relevant especially if you’re looking at a deceased estate, where the beneficiaries/ don’t have the capacity one way or the other to actually get the house ready for sale.
Why should the seller provide a building and pest inspection report to the purchaser rather than just having the purchaser making the offer subject to one?
There’s a couple of reasons behind it.
From a purchaser’s point of view, it actually gives you transparency and more confidence in putting in an offer on the property.
But for the seller, there are some really great advantages as well.
1) The first one is that it’s kind of like insurance policy because if something pops up you can deal with it and be ready for it in advance.
For instance, the roof is sagging, the floor is sloping, if it’s an old weatherboard like this one in here, you can actually show to the purchaser that it is okay, or it is not okay but then at least they know.
2) It also means that if it is something that could be potentially a deal breaker, you can exclude it from the contract because you now know about it.
So if you’re looking at selling your home, it might be worthwhile providing a building and pest inspection up front.
It is easy to add colour to your home, simply get some paintings or some pictures that are full of colour, not ones of you and your family but something more generic. And that way your home presents like a blank canvas.
The purpose of the final inspection is for the buyer to make sure that the seller has met their obligations under the contract. For instance, to ensure that things are in working order, if there are special conditions for that. Usually the buyer also measures up, checks things are in preparation for moving in, but that is not the purpose of the final inspection.
The final inspection usually takes place within one week prior to settlement.
There are so many buyers, who tell me that they get frustrated with properties advertised for sale and there’s no floor plan because they can’t understand how the home is flowing. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a small home or a big home, it’s the same principle. Floor plans are really easy to create. If you don’t have a floor plan, don’t worry about it. That can be done and they don’t cost a lot. If you have a builder’s plan, it can be redrawn really, easily. It is a must in your marketing package when you’re selling.
You should be on realestate.com.au, because that has dominant market share, here in WA. You should also have your home for sale on Domain, because a lot of buyers here in WA are using it, and it has dominant market share in some of the Eastern States. And then there’s Reiwa, and it’s definitely worthwhile being on Reiwa as well. So, there are some other websites as well, but they’re less important, and most of them actually just feed from one of the three main websites.
Another thing to consider is that you want to make sure that you get maximum exposure on these websites, which means you need to get the premium or highlight, or whatever they call, package, because there’s no point having your home advertised for sale if it’s sitting on page three. It’s like looking at Google, very rarely do you go past page two.
Presentation is so important when selling a property. Ideally, a property gets staged. If the no one’s living there, it can be staged so it looks like a complete home. It can be partially staged. Sometimes that’s not possible and that could be a cost factor. If the house is empty, the photographer can take the photos of the empty house, and then apply virtual staging. It’s never the recommended version but it’s the next best option especially if you have an investment property. If you like to know more about how to present your property for maximum exposure, do get in touch.
Photos are one of the most crucial parts of your marketing campaign.
If your photos are not properly done, you will have buyers running away.
You can have photos taken during the day or you can have photos taken at night which is what we call twilight. The twilight ones are definitely the ones to go for if you’ve got a very well presented home, you’ve got great views or you’ve got fantastic lighting.
It really comes down to the property but, do yourself a huge favour and get a professional photographer in regardless.
Using drone photography or video is a fantastic way to showcase the location of your home. It could be that you are close to the beach or the city or you are close to some amazing cafes or another great location. It could also be about certain features of the property. It is definitely something you want to consider when you’re selling your property, because it engages with the buyer, and that’s what you want.
Realestate and Domain have some really powerful retargeting tools that can be applied to your property when selling. And what they do is they look at what the people on their platforms, what they’re searching for, and then they can serve the advert for your property as well. The great thing is that you don’t have to activate this straight away. You can do it as part of your campaign.
You could do it in week one, two, three, four, five, and hopefully you don’t need to be on the market for that long. If you’d like to know more about how to advertise your property effectively on social media, do get in touch.
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