(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 and please always remember that there is no such thing as a silly question so please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions that you may have.
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 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 will get more buyers looking at your home, do get in touch.
Lights are really easy to fix and they are really important to the property presentation.
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 to get some new light bulbs.
3 easy ways you can increase the appeal of your home when selling are.
1) 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 these 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 to just simply change the light bulbs to something that is a cool light as this will have more of a punch than a warm light.
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. Alternatively, get a painter in. It could cost less than you think, and it’s definitely worth 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.
However, you’ve got to be careful of not excluding too many things because it may put off prospective buyers.
A property valuation is carried out by a licensed valuer and it is something that will be done 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 it is 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 local real estate agent near you.
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 and it is in the ground, it will stay with the home.
Another way to think about it is this – if you take your home and you turn it upside down, what will still be in there? The personal belongings will be shaken out but whatever is left will stay 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 buy the home subject to building and pest inspection. So to get around that, it might be worthwhile spending a couple hundred dollars getting building and pest inspections done up front and to provide that to the buyer.
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 is kind of like insurance policy because if something pops up you can deal with it and be ready for it in advance.
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 already 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. This 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 is no floor plan. This makes it really hard for buyers to understand how the home is laid out. This is even more important for interstate buyers who may not be able to inspect in person.
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.
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.
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 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 is living there, it can be staged so it looks like a complete home. It can also be partially staged.
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 for us but it is sometimes the next best option if you have a tenanted investment property.
Photos are one of the most crucial parts of your marketing campaign.
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 are searching for, and then they can send the advert for your property to them 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 although 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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