Originally posted at: http://www.firstteam.com/blog/?p=6429

Winter is a slow season for the real estate market so if you want to sell your home quickly this season – or any other no matter the market – it’s important to have a strategy. Here are the best tips and tricks to selling your house to get more buyers interested and hooked on your home. Numbers don’t lie and according to real estate statistics these are the most successful, proven strategies to use in order to get results – and quickly!

1. Post Lots Of Pictures Online – Image is everything and you want to make sure your home has a good one. And not just one, but several so that buyers can get a feel for your home when they see your listing online. 90% of buyers will utilize the internet to search for their next home and if they can’t see your home, they’re going to move on quickly. 10 or more pictures can help reduce your home’s days-on-market time by up to 42% and improve the selling price by as much as 3.8%.

Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. If you were searching online and you didn't see a photo or the images of a property looked ugly, would you be interested to see more? Probably not. These days with just a simple smart phone camera and a good filter, you can take top-notch high quality photos.

2. Have An Open House – Reportedly 45% of home buyers say they used information from an open house in their home search. Open houses are great because they attract all sorts of potential buyers and get your neighborhood working for you. Neighbors can help widen your buyer audience through word of mouth, give attendees the insider scoop on the local community and provide moral support.

Winter is a great time to have an open house too because it allows you to do a bit of your own staging and entice buyers with a bit of holiday decoration. A few well placed stockings and holly can really brighten up your home and help buyers fall in love with your home during an open house.

3. Stage It – Staging a home simply means decorating and dressing up a home in order to make it more appealing to buyers. Statistics show that staging can help a property sell 50% faster and for as much as 6.9% higher. If your home is staged, your pictures will look even better and your open house will be that much more successful.

When you stage your house, think of it as a model home. Keep things clutter free, clean and stick to classic designs and styles – less is more. Allow the buyers to imagine their own life and style filling in the blanks.  Also, be sure your home not only looks good but smells great. Invest in a couple of holiday scented air fresheners or candles. Be sure to try out scents before you have buyers over though, you don’t want them scared away by scents that are sickly sweet or overpowering.

4. Reasonably Price Your Home - There are plenty of tools online that can estimate your home’s value, but how do you pick the perfect home price? It’s tricky because we all want to make a profit from our home and cash in on the highest possible value it holds, but it’s important to be realistic and sell you home in a timely manner.

First Team can help you price your home with a Comparative Market Analysis or CMA. Our CMA report compares your home to others like it in your neighborhood to give you a true home value range. This is the most effective way to determine your home’s value because it’s a hyper local comparison and real estate is all about the local market.

5. Be Flexible And Open - Make your home available for showings at anytime. If your home is available by appointment only, you greatly reduce the number of buyers who will come and see it. You want to be as flexible and open as possible in allowing potential buyers to come and view your home - the more buyers who come, the more chance there is of someone making an offer.

The best policy is to have viewings available on a call first basis. Leave your contact information in the listing add along with your agent's so when buyers are interested, they can just call ahead before stopping by. While this is less convenient for you, it will get you more interested buyers.  Just make sure you keep your house tidy and clutter free at all times!