Are you thinking about selling your Leawood house? Before you list or sell it on your own, you should have your negotiation strategy in place. Always try to be one step ahead of your buyers.
Use concrete facts to validate your asking price and consider anything about the house that could be used as ammunition to lower the sale price. In our latest post, we will provide negotiation tips for selling your home.
Negotiation Tips for Selling Your Home in Leawood
Inspect First, List Later
Having an inspection done before potential buyers see your home can be extremely beneficial to get your asking price without any haggle. An inspection will usually cost less than $400 and can tell you everything in your house that should be fixed. If you tend to these issues beforehand, your buyer’s inspection should come up clean and the potential buyer won’t be able to hit you up for repair costs!
Talk to your Realtor to ask for recommendations on inspectors. You want one that will be truthful without going overboard. For example, we were selling a house at one point and had renovated everything, new heating, new windows, new air, new roof . . . everything. The inspector could not really find any real issues so instead, he scared the buyer to death telling them that the brand new 30-year roof could fail at any point and might need to be replaced at a cost of $10,000 to $20,000. We had to talk the buyer down and explain that yes the roof could need to be replaced due to wind, hail or fire but unless some disaster happened it should last for another 30 years. This is something you don’t want your inspector doing, because when you list you will be disclosing the inspection and including a list of all the items you repaired to show there is nothing left to do in your home.
Consider Throwing in Extras
Let’s say someone had toured your home, commenting on how nicely everything is set-up. You are pretty certain this person is interested, however, they seem to be on the fence. You could offer to throw in furniture, (or certain pieces) in with the house! The options with this are endless. You could offer a golf-cart, riding mower, kayak… you get the idea! Some buyers are looking for something fun for their new house, while others would prefer a $1000 gift card. Consider incentives, sometimes even a small token can help get an offer on the table.
Be sure to talk to your Realtor and ask the best way to do this. Often it would be done on a separate bill of sale signed at closing with a dollar amount or as a gift. Depending on how your buyer is financing their purchase will dictate how you write up the extra item as lenders sometimes frown on incentives to buy being included in the contract.
Don’t Be Emotional
Before you start getting offers in the door, you will want to set your limits. Set the absolute lowest price you will accept for the house. Do not go under that price no matter what the situation. If you do not get any offers, you might have priced the home incorrectly or maybe it simply isn’t the right time. Have a backup plan in place. In sales terms, they call it “BATNA.” This stands for “best alternative to a negotiated agreement.” Let’s say you don’t get the offer you want, have a plan in place to rent the home out for 1 year and try again. If you are prepared with an alternative, you won’t end up selling your house for less than it’s worth. Plus, it will keep you in control. You never want to appear desperate to sell.
But at the same time, don’t get hung up on something. We have spoken to numerous sellers who had their home listed for sale and they got an offer that was lower than their lowest price so they turned it down, rather than making a counteroffer. We have spoken to others that received an acceptable offer, but the buyers were asking for the seller to pay a few $1000 for their closing costs, so again they turned it down.
Ask yourself do you want to still own this house a year from now over a difference of a few thousand dollars?
Facilitate a Bidding War
If you are fairly confident your house will receive many offers, you might choose to let buyers know you will be “reviewing all bids at 5 pm on Friday.” This will create a bit of a buzz. People will want to outbid each other knowing there will be competition, so you will likely receive higher offers. If your house isn’t primed to receive many offers, this strategy isn’t for you. You are better off checking out each offer as it comes in.
When I was an agent for the bank, I would often advise them to list their home just a bit below market and put it in the MLS on a Thursday. We noted in the listing that no offers would be accepted until Monday Morning at 5 pm. And then when we had three or four offers, we would then respond back Tuesday morning that we had several offers and will be accepting the highest and best offer at 5pm on Tuesday. This is a tough strategy, so be sure to work with your listing agent and take their advice.
Learn About The Buyer
To help you better negotiate with a buyer, take some time to learn about them. What situation are they in? Do they need to move right away? Are they financially able to pay full price? What is their motivation for wanting to move? If they need a bigger house for their family, you can play up how large the finished basement is. Do they like sports? Talk about their favorite team. Creating friendly conversation will help your negotiations go more smoothly.
We just sold a house, way over asking price in Blue Springs Missouri. The buyer was relocating to Kansas City from Colorado, they had put in an offer on several houses only to be told the seller’s had accepted a different offer. So when they came to us, they offered over list price right away, so we know that they were very serious buyers.
When it comes to selling your Leawood house, you can always expect for there to be some haggling. If you are prepared and keep yourself one step ahead, you will be more likely to get your listing price!