Everyone wants to know the best negotiation tips for home sellers to get them the highest prices for their homes with the least amount of hassle and to get their home sold quickly. The best negotiations balance a seller’s wish to get the home sold quickly and at a high price with the buyer’s wish to find a good deal. Here are 5 great negotiation tips for home sellers in Atlanta:
GET YOUR HOME INSPECTED BEFORE LISTING
Yes, you will need to have your home inspected again during the sales process, especially if the buyer plans to finance the purchase. However, sometimes one of the best negotiation tips for home sellers is knowing exactly what you’re dealing with when negotiating with sellers.
Getting a home inspection before you even list your home for sale can help you know the overall condition of your home if there are any major safety or structural hazards that need to be repaired, and whether the buyers may negotiate certain things as part of a purchase.
Knowing these items before you’ve got an offer on the table – and a buyer itching to close on the home – can help you take care of them quickly, for cheaper, and with less stress to you.
OFFER A WARRANTY
If you know you’ve got an aging heating system, for example, offering a home warranty to potential buyers can really make or break the sale. This can give the buyer peace of mind when it comes to big-ticket items and can help you sell that home faster. Putting out a few hundred dollars to purchase a warranty is going to save you in the long run, as you won’t have to worry about offering half the price of a new furnace to get the home sold, for example.
PRICE AHEAD OF THE MARKET
Working with your real estate agent to predict potential trends in your local housing market is one of the best negotiation tips for home sellers out there. Your agent can help you price your home at a level that will get you as close to your asking price as possible without you having to haggle with the buyer on every little detail.
CREATE COMPETITION
Waiting until after you have hosted an open house can help you get more offers, with more people in a bidding war. And having more people bidding on your house means you’re more likely to get a better selling price.
List your house, and then schedule an open house. But don’t take any offers until after that open house. If you get multiple offers, you’ve got more people whose offers you can play against one another with the hopes of you coming out on top.
SET A DEADLINE
One of the hardest negotiation tips for home sellers to stick to is to walk away to avoid an endless bidding war. If you’ve got a few interested buyers going against one another, set a timeline for any counteroffers, and stick to them. Make those expiration dates relatively short so you don’t risk losing potential interest.
This will help buyers feel a sense of urgency and may make them more likely to offer more than they would in other circumstances, getting you a higher price. Buyers would rather pay a little more for a home than to risk losing it to someone else.