The top challenge for Saskatoon home sellers...
...is getting buyers through the front door.
Pre-internet times, buyers often inspected dozens of homes before choosing one.
By 2019, that number had fallen to 10 (on average).
Post-COVID?
Far fewer.
There's no solid statistical data available yet but everyone in this business can see it.
Buyers are doing their homework to shorten the viewing list.
And they're ruthless.
Sellers.
1) Prepare your home well. Fix what's broken. Freshen what's looking a bit tired or ugly.
2) Up your presentation game. Your home must show well online or it won't make the view list. Great photos and 3D video tours are a must.
3) Promote that home to get it in front of buyers many times. It pays to be persistent and obvious.
4) Price the home well. You don't have to be cheap but this isn't a good time to be trying to set new records. If you're priced ten percent above recent sales you won't be getting many visits.
Transcript
I've been very interested in following how those who are buying Saskatoon homes are responding to the whole COVID-19 crisis.
So at the end of last month, there were 213 homes that had traded hands, and I reached out to every seller's agent that was involved in those 213 transactions. I heard back from 155 of them, and my question was, "Had they done a transaction during the month of April in which a buyer had written an offer and removed conditions without ever seeing the house?"
And in 155 of 155 responses, the answer was no.
In every instance the buyers that bought did a physical inspection of the house at some point prior to removal of conditions. Which totally makes sense to me, right? These are massive financial commitments that can have implications for a long period of time. You stay in a house for seven, eight, nine, 10 years, you wanna make sure that you're making the right decision.
So it seems obvious to me that buyers would want to get in and look before they make that kind of commitment.
But the other thing that was very clear to me is that buyers are looking at far fewer homes than they used to.
Before the internet was a thing, people would look at 25 to 30 homes, and when the internet became a thing that kind of fell under 10. And it looks to me now that it's more like under five.
So that means that buyers are doing a lot more qualifying of properties online, and they're eliminating properties online, choosing not to see them before they actually go and do that physical viewing.
So my advice today is for home sellers, you need to be keenly aware of how buyers are shopping, and your presentation piece needs to be very well done.
So good staging, good photos, nice 3D tours or videos that give buyers some real insight into what your home has to offer before they come out to see it.
Those are the kind of things that are gonna encourage a buyer ultimately to come and see your home, and hopefully make an offer on it.
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I'm upping my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra
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