You have only ONE CHANCE to be New To The Market

Home sellers often resort to staging their homes only after a long unproductive stint on the market. They see it as a last resort and a step they were not willing to consider when they first listed their house. "We'll wait and see if it sells. I'm not going to spend money on trying to sell this house if I don't need to".

The problem with this approach is that the first few weeks your home is on the market is a window of saleability that you can never recapture unless you take your house off the market and allow an extended period of time to elapse before re-listing.

The longer your home sits on the market, the more likely you are to have to lower your price and make concessions to the buyer.

Read that sentence over about three times.

Remember there are two variables you have control over. Price and presentation. If your house is priced right AND presents well you have the best possible chance of selling in the first weeks, even days of listing.

So let's look at price first. You interviewed 3 realtors and they all gave you a price they felt your house should list for based on the comps in your area and the current market. The 3 quotes differed by several thousand dollars. Do you pick the realtor suggesting the highest asking price because you think he is the only one that truly recognizes the greatness of your home and you'd much rather sell for $450,000 than $415,000?  Do you pick the realtor with the biggest dollar signs because even though you bought the house 5 years ago at $375,000 you did paint a few walls and did some routine maintenance that you think should net you a profit of $75,000?

I'm suggesting to you that when a house is priced wrong from the get-go, you will give up something you cannot recoup. That golden position called "New To The Market".

An acquaintance who sold her house 3 years ago had an agent that grossly overpriced her home. There  were no good comps in the area. The homeowner had over-improved her house for the area she was in. Her upgrades were not in line with other area homes in terms of the interior finishes. She sold her house 9 months after listing it for $450,000 after lowering her price by $139,000. The people who bought the house had looked at it during the very first open house but felt it was overpriced at the time. When the price came to where it should have been....they bought it. In that eight months the homeowner had to endure multiple life disrupting open houses and showings; leave most of her furnishings behind; and pay two mortgages since she had already bought another home. The toll in stress and financial loss was enormous. She has no doubt that if it had been priced right at the get-go, her house would have sold immediately. But she was flattered by the higher "appraisal" this realtor provided and was too clueless (her admission) to know that it was unrealistic.  

Now let's talk about the other controllable factor. Presentation. It's a proven fact that staging will increase a home's saleability. But the majority of homeowners don't even consider it and those that do often do so as a last resort after their home has languished on the market for extended periods of time when that golden window of being New To The Market has long passed and the blush is off the rose. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try staging as a last resort but I am saying that the absolute best time to stage is before your home ever gets listed. Before one potential buyer walks through your front door. If your home is priced right and is presenting well, you have a priceless edge on your competition and the best possible chance of making a quick sale that is at or very close to your asking price.