BUYER'S FEEDBACK, Making it Work for You
We've all seen the commercials about going nose blind to odours in our homes. The same holds true about when you're selling your home. This is when the buyers can actually help with their feedback.
For the weeks previous to listing, most homeowners are decluttering, cleaning and primping the house for the market. After all the work, finally, they're ready for the market and start having showings.
Eighty percent of the time the house just wasn't for that particular buyer. It's not personal or anything you can do about it. It's a matter of their personal preferences compared to yours. It is, however, a great time to get some feedback on anything you may have gone blind to in your home.
A few of the most common ones I hear is animal odours especially cats, smoking or food odours, poor lighting, worn flooring or scuffed up walls.
Almost all of these complaints are easy fixes and involve cleaning, paint or some floor replacement. Though the buyer could easily take these projects on after buying the home, the initial negative impression is enough to put them off the house for good. Poor lighting most times is a matter of the curtains and blinds are not open prior to showings. We all know the saying "the first impression is the best impression".
It is crucial to get feedback, good and bad. It's not personal and buyer's being honest with their feedback actually helps the agent and the homeowner. Obviously, the buyer that gave it didn't like the house enough to look past these items but the seller can heed the feedback to make easy fixes so no future buyers will make the same comments.
I once had an agent pass on my feedback which was, "the house smelled like a gym bag" directly to their seller. The seller was so upset he set out to get me admonished for the comment, which didn't happen. Firstly, agents as professionals should be filtering the feedback and giving it to our sellers delicately. His time would have been better spent eliminating an odour that he had grown nose blind to.
If the feedback is consistent that the road is too busy or the layout is not suitable for the majority of buyers then a conversation about a price adjustment is in order.
It helps to look at the buyers viewing your home as consultants that will help us with any easy fixes we can make after their negative comments.
To find out more about buyer habits in today's market please feel free to reach out to any of our qualified agents.
Cheers
Brenda K