When I walk into a listing appointment to meet a seller and take a look at their home, I can usually determine within a matter of seconds if it will sell quickly or if it might take some time to sell. Of course factors such as asking price, market conditions, location, features, etc. will always play a role in how long it will take a home to sell, but assuming the market is fairly healthy and the house is priced reasonably, I am, with very few exceptions, usually fairly accurate about how long it will take (give or take a little) to sell.
If the property is a hot one or has potential to move quickly, I like to utilize a marketing strategy that creates a pent up demand and almost always produces an immediate offer or offers. I try my best to have such a listing ready to “hit the market” on a Wednesday afternoon, but delay any showings until Friday. By allowing the listing to go live a couple of days before showings are allowed will inevitably create a built up list of buyers and agents who desperately want to show it as soon as possible on Friday morning.
Think about it; buyers and agents are constantly online looking for new listings to hit the market. They see this new listing and are immediately intrigued. They call their agent and tell the agent they want to see it asap. Agent tells their buyer the earliest they can go see it is in a couple of days. By the time Friday roll around, often times there are multiple buyers and agents who want to see the home and more often than not, by Friday afternoon or Saturday mid-day, we have at least one and often times multiple offers.
In addition, I can almost guarantee I will receive multiple calls from other agents begging to have a chance to show it to their buyer before anyone else has the chance to. I will hear things such as, “My client is leaving tomorrow and this is the only time possible” or “I promise my buyer is ready to pull the trigger and doesn’t want to miss out on this house”, etc. This is where I have already asked my sellers if they want to make any exceptions or if they want to hold the line and delay all showings until Friday (it’s ultimately up to my sellers).
Case in point, I recently listed 107 Deer Trail in Boerne, Texas in the Ranger Creek subdivision. Due to its’ unique qualities and amazing backyard (three zip lines, tree house, gardens, etc.), I knew it would fly off the shelf. Just as planned, we hit the market on a Wednesday with it going into the MLS and then it being syndicated to all of the real estate home buying sites shortly thereafter. Within the first hour, we had 4 showing requests for Friday and within the next 4 hours, we had another 8 requests to see it on Friday. In short, we had 14 showings on Friday and several more on Saturday. We allowed for overlapping showings as well, so every showing had multiple agents and buyers present at the same time, essentially creating a feeding frenzy between many of the buyers. We received a total of 8 offers and ended up accepting a cash offer for well over asking price.
Suffice to say my sellers were elated with joy and very pleased with the results. I am not saying this strategy must be used, especially in a hot market as you may be able to list your home and allow for showings the same day and have excellent results, but if you can be just a little patient (allowing for a two day delay in showings), you might just be pleasantly surprised in the showing and offer activity your house may experience, which often times can benefit you, the seller, in the form of multiple competitive offers.
Hill Country Flat Fee Realty proudly serves the communities of Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, San Antonio, Kerrville, Fredericksburg, Bulverde, Spring Branch, New Braunfels and Comfort. Our flat fee model that saves sellers a ton of cash and is simply the smarter way to sell a property these days!