The coronavirus pandemic has presented the real estate community with a unique set of challenges, changing the way transactions are traditionally handled. At the same time, the economic challenges the virus has brought about have led to a lower interest rate environment, which means buyers are ready to jump on the deals banks are now offering. Here are some tips for selling your Seattle house during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sell Directly
The pandemic is forcing sellers to think outside the box and go beyond traditional approaches to listing their house for sale. One of the ways you can do this is by working with a direct buyer, as opposed to going through an agent. Northwest Property Solutions can help walk you through this process.
No Open Houses
A hallmark of the traditional home sale – the open house – has gone by the wayside, given this new normal of social distancing, wearing face masks and generally seeking to avoid contact with strangers. As unfortunate as these dynamics are, they must be respected and accounted for when selling your home — the risk is simply too great to congregate with buyers, even a few at a time, at your house. Instead, look to technology to create new and innovative ways to market your home.
Create Virtual Tours
The internet and major social media platforms afford you a robust infrastructure to market your home with a virtual tour. Those tools, combined with your smartphone, can help to convey the look and feel of your home to a buyer; best of all, a virtual tour is available 24/7, anytime a buyer grabs their phone or tablet, and they can watch it as many times as they like if they feel they missed something.
Some tips for putting together a great virtual tour: get your house neat and tidy so it’s ready to go on camera; walk through your home slowly, being careful to think like the buyer, who’s never seen it before and may want a close look at certain details; walk and hold your camera/phone steadily, and don’t spin around suddenly; and finally, leverage any social media accounts you may have (or create them if you don’t) to upload the video, such as a YouTube channel, Facebook or Instagram page, or Twitter account (even better, use them all and cross-promote the links from each account, which could help in your search rankings). While having a professional videographer do the tour would be ideal, don’t count on being able to book one under today’s conditions.
Clean!
Cleaning the house is paramount in these uncertain times, as serious buyers will eventually want to visit the home. When preparing for this, there are certain high-touch areas you can’t neglect: light switches, door handles, countertops – anywhere you think a buyer might linger and want to touch or feel to examine an area more closely. Again, think like the buyer who’s seeing the home for the first time. You can ask them to limit their contact, but don’t count on that being the case. After their walk-through, sanitize all of the common surfaces thoroughly.
Use Technology
Continuing the theme of leveraging technology, face-to-face meetings and transactions are not a necessity any longer. Use your laptop, tablet, or smartphone to conduct teleconferences, Skype calls, Facetimes, or Zoom meetings with all parties involved. Use a digital signing app, like Docusign or Landtech, to execute documents and contracts. Virtual closings are not unheard of and will only become more common nowadays, so look into that as well.
Take it Easy
It’s hectic to try and sell a home under the BEST of conditions, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself in the current environment. With some planning and coordination, you can keep showings spread out over time, which allows you plenty of time in between to clean and prep for the next buyer. Post video clips and pictures of your home regularly on social media to keep them circulating online, so a prospective buyer will be more likely to have them show up in their news feed or search queries. These tips should help you during this unprecedented time to sell your Seattle house during the coronavirus pandemic.
Contact Northwest Property Solutions today at (253) 220-7775 or you can send us a message to discuss these tips for selling your house in more depth or to brainstorm other ideas. We’ll help assess the optimal approach for balancing technology and social distancing measures with availability at the right times to effectively close the deal.