Although the country is reemerging, our safety will mean doing some things virtually for a long time. The good news is we are succeeding at it, and home sales are no exception! Most, sometimes even all, parts of selling your home can happen without social contact. Since many sellers put the process on hold during the height of the pandemic, there are a lot of buyers out there eager to resume the search. So let’s review steps for selling your home virtually.
Reaching Buyers Virtually
The important steps required to reach buyers start with interviewing realtors. Using Face-Time or Zoom, you can ask about an agent’s success record with your type of home and their experience with online marketing and virtual home-showing.
Realtors in Seattle and nationwide use videos, drone footage, Facebook Live, and 3D renderings to give potential buyers as much access to a property as possible. Some buyers even feel they see more this way than they would walking through. As long as the presentations are honest about all features and flaws, virtual tours are both attractive and effective.
Impressing Buyers Virtually
The goal of a virtual tour is the same as the goal of a live tour, to spark buyers’ imaginations and get them to see themselves living in the home. The first impression, and every impression, should have that “wow” factor. That means depersonalized, clean, spacious rooms staged to show off the house’s features and the lifestyle it can offer.
Staging is about furnishing and decorating a house just enough, in just the right way, to achieve that goal. It can be challenging to DIY, whether the home is empty or, in these days of sheltering, occupied 24/7. Another step you can take virtually is to consult with a professional stager. After touring virtually and discussing your budget and schedule, a stager offers advice on furniture placement, using accessories, good lighting, and maintaining your staging while you live there. Then you can DIY with confidence.
Shaking Hands with a Buyer Virtually
Once you have a serious buyer, your agent may do a private live tour with masks and social distancing, but some buyers are happy to make an offer without one. You and your realtor can assess multiple offers together online, and most of the process of accepting an offer and closing can be done virtually.
The only step that will have to be done the traditional way is the home inspection, as the inspector does have to be inside the house. Since inspectors do their work alone, they will expect you not to be there, but they should still wear a mask and practice safety.
Documents can be exchanged, signed, and in some states, even notarized online. Your top agent, experienced in the new virtual selling, will guide you through it all. You may then want to put an actual, IRL SOLD sign outside!
Written by Mackenzie Kirk
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