Real estate tips for getting more money for your home

In a hot sellers market many homes will go for or above their listing price, but that doesn’t mean that sellers shouldn’t try and get top dollar. These are a few real estate tips for how to get more money for your home. Following these, I managed to sell 1233 Northmount Avenue for $2,770,000 – $271,000 over asking. Which was not just the highest price ever sold on their street, but in their neighbourhood west of Haig too!

Strategic Pricing + Doing Our Homework

None of the two storey detached homes that had recently sold in Lakeview had done an offer night. While offer nights are typically not a strategy for luxury priced homes, I had started seeing the strategy work in the current marketplace. Homes were going for full asking price in the neighbourhood in just two days, so I knew that listing agents were leaving money on the table. There was no reason that we shouldn’t at least try.

I also made sure to tour similar homes in the neighbourhood. Many of them were hack jobs that were nowhere near the quality of my clients home. But that didn’t stop other agents from trying to use them as comparables. Had I not done my homework, we may have believed their lowball offers were just.

Home Preparation

While 1233 Northmount Ave was a custom built home with beautiful finishings, my clients – all three generations of them – had been living in it for almost a year and they had stuff. In order to showcase the home to it’s fullest potential, we needed to de-clutter. In the pantry alone, we packed up 15 boxes of appliances, pots, and pans (see below). Obviously no one can live like that day to day, but as I kept reminding my clients, we are selling the dream, not the reality. We had all of the bedrooms painted to keep things neutral. The light fixtures were changed up to match the style of the home. We had the home deep cleaned and finally, a pre-list property inspection report were completed to make sure our potential buyers had no reason to doubt their decision.

Marketing

We had your typical photos and drone shots, video and 3d doll house tours completed – but that is just the bare minimum. If your agent isn’t preparing these for you, I would second guess your hire. Online is where the majority of people start their search, and MLS is the #1 place people begin. I didn’t stop there. I have a multi media marketing strategy that includes social media, YouTube, email, and regular mail to get the word out. We had over 22,800 views on this property that did not include MLS searches. By doing so, we had multiple agents reach out to view the property before we listed and wanted to offer a pre-emptive. We didn’t accept, but it didn’t hurt when we were able to advise other agents that offers had started.

Negotiations

We can all agree that we hate blind bidding, right? I’m a buyer agent too, and it is infuriating. However, through conversations with agents, I knew their first offers were not final. After a few rounds of negotiations, I was able to net my clients an extra $70,000 from where we started. Which here in Toronto, just so happens to cover the majority of their fees.

These are a few of my real estate tips for getting you more money for your home. This list is by no means exhaustive, but real estate agent due diligence, even in a hot sellers market can absolutely help you get more for your home. A big congratulations to my sellers for all their hard work and sacrifice. They got their home ready and kept it looking this way through the whole process.

Click here for my YouTube video on this topic for some more colourful commentary 😉