Selling your home is stressful no matter how fantastic your real estate agent is and it can be a long process, depending on your location, the season, home price, and much more. However, there are many things you can do to speed up the process without compromising on price. It’s important for sellers to put their best foot forward for potential buyers, and that doesn’t just include in-person showings.

There are a number of ways to make a home stand out head and shoulders above the rest of the competition, especially online. Today, we’ll discuss five ways to ensure your home is the one that makes the most memorably impression on potential buyers and their real estate agents in Atlanta.

Professional Photography

Gone are the days when buying a home involved a phone call to a realtor to search the, then private, database of houses on the market so that he or she could compile a list of potential homes for a client to tour in person. The digital age has propelled advancements in the way that the real estate industry operates, and now buyers have access to high-quality images of houses in their price range at the simple click of a button. You want your home to make a stunning first impression, right?

A study completed by National Association of Realtors in 2016 tells us that the percentage of buyers who used the internet to search for the home they ended up buying was 95%. This means a seller’s first impression is in the photos and not in person. You’ve got about five seconds to get them to look at your house before they go on to another one. That’s how critical photography is!

By hiring a professional real estate photographer, you can be assured that your home’s finest assets will be advertised, while it’s less-than-stellar corners will be made to appear beautiful. Real estate photographers have the ability to make an ordinary home look extraordinary. At Catalyst Home Team, we hire some of the best professional photographers around.

Stage Your Home

Staging, with the help of a professional stager, is one of the best ways to speed up the sale of your home. In fact, properly staged homes spend 88% less time on the market than non-staged homes. And 95% of staged homes sell on average in 11 days or less and sell for 17% more than non-staged homes, according to the National Assocation of Realtors.  And what most sellers don’t realize is that staging is really about opening up the space and color in your rooms moreso for the photos buyers & real estate agents view online than it is about how your home is presented during in-person showings.

So, should you stage your whole home, or just a few rooms? In the Profile Home Staging report, the living room was found to be most important (55 percent), followed by master bedroom (51 percent) and kitchen (41 percent). It’s not just about showing off the rooms in your home to look as large and spacious as possible, it is also about presenting a lifestyle to prospective buyers. Buyers want your home to look like a shelter magazine, or like something they’ve seen on HGTV. It’s more elevated than it has been in the past.

Staging always makes a difference, and is essential in this market.

Upgrade With Features Buyers Want Most

You can often turn to trends to find out what buyers want most in a new home, and NAHB’s Housing Preferences Across Generations 2016 report makes it easy to determine the most valuable upgrades before selling. Below are the top four features to consider adding, upgrading or remodeling if you’re marketing your home in Atlanta, GA to Baby Boomers:

• Laundry Room
• ENERGY STAR (energy efficient) Appliances
• Exterior Lighting for safety
• ENERGY STAR windows for lower monthly expenses

Millennials have different needs for their home, including:

• Outdoor space like a patio, deck or front porch
• Laundry room, and not just a laundry closet
• Generous pantry
• Open plan living room

Catalyst Home Team would be happy to consult with you on which features you can add to your home, or remodel, to speed up the selling process when you’re ready to move on.

Promote The Extras and Their Benefits

In the current environment of the real estate market in Atlanta, Georgia, we recommend to our sellers to make repairs or updates prior to listing their home for sale. Buyers today, especially millennials, prefer to have the home in move-in ready condition, rather than taking a seller credit towards the repairs or updates. However, if you’re adding extras into the sale, like new appliances or updated flooring—remember to have your real estate agent talk them up in the listing description and also in the marketing materials.  Extras that may be best to promote, include:

• Security Features like a full system alarm monitoring system with window & door alarms.
• Outdoor Space that you’ve invested time or money in, and especially if you plan to leave a children’s play set or have had a custom outdoor fireplace installed.
• Landscaping and especially privacy trees to allow your outdoor space to be more private

Get the Right Pricing With a Realtor®

If you want to sell your home fast, the pricing needs to be just right and at current market value. One of the benefits of working with a realtor is that we know the area and the conditions of the current real estate market. At Catalyst Home Team, we know how to price your home correctly, when to put it on the market to get you the most money, and how to negotiate with buyers to get the best sales price in the least amount of time.

We know that historically, your first offer is your best offer. More buyers purchase their homes at market value and when we price your home to sell at market value, we will expose your home to a much greater percentage of prospective buyers and you will increase your opportunity for a faster sale. If we price your home even 10% above current market value, the number of prospective buyers who will view your home online will be cut in half than when it is priced at market value.

Selling your home fast, without compromising is possible when you hire the right real estate agent who will secure the best photos of your home, made better by professional staging, consult with you to make the right upgrade choices, and who will promote the most wanted features of your home through their marketing efforts. Catalyst Home Team aim to make your home selling journey a smooth and enjoyable process from start to finish with the tools and knowledge you need to move forward.