How to Start a Bidding War When It’s Time to Sell Your Home
Let the bidding commence!
Putting your home on the market brings out all the feels. There’s at least a bit of excitement and anticipation, but there’s often lots of anxiety, too. Regardless of the reason you’re selling, you want to get the highest price you can.
Lucky for you, we’re in an extreme seller’s market in Denver. It’s time to put your house on the market and bring on the bidding war!
What is a Bidding War?
A bidding war breaks out when two or more buyers offer more than list price in an effort to outbid each other and win your home. In other words, it’s the golden ticket for sellers, and right now in Denver, the pump is primed for this exact scenario.
In addition to receiving a killer monetary offer, you may also be wooed by buyer’s offering money towards low appraisals, limited or waived inspections, and the flexibility to rent back your own home until a time when it’s convenient for you to move. In short, your house is the smart, pretty girl that everyone is vying to take to prom. What could be better?
Of course, starting a bidding war requires more than just a wish written over and over in your diary with purple ink and bubble letters. You’ll have to take an active role in setting yourself and your home up for a successful sale. And, like our girl Cinderella, you’ll need a fairy godmother (or two *cough* Dwell Denver) to show up and bippity-boppity-boo her into shape. At Dwell, the magic goes a little something like this:
BIPPITY: Price your house well to get the attention of the most people.
BOPPITY: Make your house look stunning (not “OK” or “good enough,” but drop-dead gorgeous), and then get it in front of qualified buyers.
BOO: Make the buyers feel like they have a good chance of losing their dream home if they don’t make a big play.
Still wondering exactly how it all works? No secrets here among us friends; we’ll break it down for you even further!
Step 1 to Starting a Bidding War
PRICING YOUR HOME CORRECTLY
Pricing is the single most important factor when listing your home, and starting with your giant dream number actually works against you to kill upward momentum with buyers. With a bloated initial price tag, they may enter into the process with a bad taste in their mouths before the negotiations even begin.
A bitter buyer will take their bad feelings out on the seller with tougher inspections and a low motivation to offer any competitive extras. This dwindling level of emotional goodwill on the part of your buyers will remove any sense of urgency they have in the bidding process. As a result, your overpriced house tends to sit longer on the market. Potential buyers start to wonder “What’s wrong with this house? Why hasn’t it sold yet?” and bid lower than asking.
On the flip side, a well-priced home is a guaranteed belle of the ball. We expertly price homes based on solid data:
Comparable Market Analysis (“Comps”). We look at homes similar to yours in your specific market: for sale, pending sale, and recently sold.
Real-life market experience. There’s no room for guesswork when pricing your home, and we’re obsessed with understanding the Denver market–and leveraging it to your advantage.
Based on what we learn through our extensive research, we list your home for just under that ideal price, which draws massive interest and launches your bidding war. The buyers who win are so excited to be “chosen” that their goodwill carries them, and you, through the entire transaction.
Step 2 to Starting a Bidding War
MAKE YOUR HOME BEAUTIFUL
Staging
Everyone loves a transformation, and you definitely want your buyer to think of their current home as Before and your home as their (Happily Ever) After. Whether you’re the unofficial heir to the Martha Stewart decorating empire or a person who struggles with where to hang a picture, all sellers should take part in a staging consultation.
Staging is fun! We’ll work with you to determine what to pre-pack and how to arrange what remains to show off your house to its best advantage. We minimize the number of personal items in the home so buyers can see their own memories and mementos filling in the gaps. But a totally blank canvas doesn’t necessarily work in your favor. If you plan to move everything out before you sell, seriously consider hiring a professional stager. (We have a couple incredible companies to recommend!) Often, this investment pays for itself; statistics show staged houses sell faster and for more money than their empty counterparts.
Photography
Professional photos are a must. 99% of buyers start their house hunt online. That virtual hunt accounts for basically everyone who will see your home! Agent- or self-shot phone pics are not going to cut it. We’ll get a seasoned real estate photography company out to the house after staging (and cleaning!) to take professional marketing photos.
Buyers may not even visit a home they don’t like online, and you definitely don’t want to lose your buyer to a lesser home in the neighborhood that just happens to have better images. Homes with beautiful pictures tend to sell first and for more money than comps with inferior shots.
Marketing Materials
So you’ve staged your home and gotten great images. Now what? We’ll step in with our marketing prowess and use tactics such as e-fliers and printed materials to let buyers know they need your home. When shopping for an agent (even us!), you should ask to see their marketing materials for previous homes so you can determine if their work entices you.
Keep in mind that good writing matters! Yes, buyers want to be able to see pictures, but they also want to read about whether the house is close to trails, boasts a bonus room that can double as an office, or has that oversized tub they’ve been dreaming of. Common mistakes and turn-offs can include bad grammar, inaccurate descriptions, or our personal fave—WRITING IN ALL CAPS TO SHOW EXCITEMENT BUT ACTUALLY MAKING A READER FEEL THEY ARE BEING YELLED AT WITHOUT INVOKING ANY EXCITEMENT AT ALL.
Exhausting, right? In addition to good writing, a top-tier agent should rely on a talented graphic designer. Amateur marketing materials look cheap and will emotionally signal buyers to assume the house itself is of lower value.
Step 3 to Starting a Bidding War
Market to Qualified Buyers
Our next goal is to promote your home everywhere qualified buyers will see it. What’s a “qualified” buyer? These are the folks who are truly in the market to buy, looking in the price range your house is listed in, already have a lender letter on hand, are (most likely) already working with an agent, and are ready to commit to offering a solid price.
Multiple Listing Service (MLS)
The most accurate place to list for qualified buyers is Multiple Listing Service, or MLS.. Apps such as Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com all pull from the MLS, so it’s crucial your agent has an agreement that her listings get pushed to these sites. (We do.) Secondary listing outlets could include your agent’s brokerage website, Craigslist, Facebook, and other highly-trafficked social media outlets.
The Open House (Actually NOT)
Mythbuster: Open Houses do not sell homes! Most people who attend open houses are your neighbors and looky-loos who love to wander through other people’s homes on the weekend after brunch. If we may be so bold (and I think we may), Open Houses are the fallback of rookie agents, or they’re a tool for an agent to market themselves to buyers who may not have contracted a buyer’s agent yet.
Sure, some qualified buyers may wander in, but in most cases, they’re already using an agent and would prefer a private showing anyway. Open Houses are just not an efficient or effective way to introduce your home to buyers, and the actually waste that first crucial 72-hour window on the market.
Step 4 to Starting a Bidding War
CREATE A FEAR OF MISSING OUT
FOMO is real friends, and in the case of house-hunting it’s your new best friend. It may sound mean, but there’s only one of your home and only one winner, so it’s just the reality of the situation.
After we’ve successfully done our job and prepped your sale, droves of qualified buyers will be going through your house and formulating their strategies for outbidding the competition. In this market, buyers know that if they don’t come out of the gate with a strong offer you’ll move on to someone else and they’ll lose out on their dream home. Ouch!
With this in mind, make sure you select an agent who can talk you through their negotiation strategy. Of course, we want that to be us, but even if it isn’t we still want the best for you! It’s vital that your agent has excellent negotiation skills so they can strengthen the offers as they come in. An inexperienced agent can fumble a bidding war and sellers can still walk away with less than they asked for. But a pro will handle the offers as they come in, bid the best against the next best to drive up the offer, and ensure that everything the buyers promise is contracted and delivered by closing.
Get the Best Price on Your Home with Dwell Denver
With an expert sales team, the whole selling process is easier than you think. And here’s the best part: Once you’ve partnered with Dwell and started this journey, the best thing you can do for yourself is to take a vacation. Really. Get out of town and relax that first weekend your home is on the market. We’ll set up a “go and show” that allows qualified buyers and their agents open access to your home and enables them to see it as much as possible. Your perfect buyer could come in Saturday morning, return on Sunday, and the bidding war can be well underway by Monday morning.
Ready to start a bidding war?
