Having a strategy while a home is on the market is just as important (or even more so), than getting it there in the first place. Let's face it… as much as we want to make pricing a home some sort of science, it can be anything but that. None of us have a magic looking glass and every home has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. I have seen two of the same model of homes, with similar updates/conditions be listed for sale on the same street where one sells overnight and the other sits for weeks. Both were listed within a couple thousand dollars of each other… why? The reality is that sometimes we just don't know. As crazy as it might sound, it could have literally been because one faced a different direction than the other.

My point is simple... sometimes all we can strive for as an agent is to get a home priced into a reasonable price range. What we do after that is what can make a far greater impact as to whether we get it under contract or not.

We often hear about the "market", but what exactly is the "market"? The market is nothing more than one buyer and one seller agreeing on the purchase price of a home. That literally is the "market"… a mutual agreement between a buyer and seller. If this is the case, would it not be important to understand how we connect that one buyer to that one seller? What strategies are available to us and our sellers to attract that buyer? Is timing important and if so, what does it look like? As Kenny Rogers pontificated… "you got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em". So let me ask you as an agent, do you know?

So how do we read the market?

The first thing to understand is that the first week to ten days is the "golden hour" for a home. The reason is simple. Anyone who is in the market for the specs of your home will see it come across their email or online housing portal (Zillow, Realtor, Homes, etc)… usually within a day or less. When I say "specs" of your home I am referring to price, location, size, number of bedrooms, etc… basically the search criteria of a buyer. The buyer will look at the pictures, determine whether they like it, contact their agent and arrange for a showing of the home. These showings will almost always occur within that seven to ten days I referred to earlier. After 10 days, you are either waiting on new buyers to come into the market who are looking for your specs, or you are hoping for buyers to broaden their specs to now include yours.

Understanding the importance of when to list a home, how to list a home, the importance of certain aspects within that listing, open houses, reverse prospecting, and marketing are all ingredients for a successful outcome. Equally important is the information an agent receives within the first 24, 48 and 72 hours after going live. Unfortunately, many agents don't even understand the importance of seeking out that information or pay attention to it. If they do, many of them don't bother communicating it to the seller until days later. The information available to an agent in that first 72 hours is critical and can be the difference between a home selling or a home sitting. A great agent has prepped their seller before ever going live to know the type of information they will be provided along with the pros and cons of action or inaction to that data. A great agent will understand what information is viable and what is noise. A great agent will understand the nuances of the area, market conditions, external influences and the importance of feedback. A great agent will solicit that feedback in the form of actual conversations with the agents who walked the home with their clients. Lastly, a great agent will assimilate all those data sources and distill them into digestible information for their seller with the goal of making pivotal changes (sometimes big, sometimes small) in an effort to catch up to that one elusive buyer who becomes the "market" for the sale of the home.

Sometimes luck plays a larger role than agents will admit, but in the right hands luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Understanding how and when to make changes in a timely and effective manner is the difference between good and great.