Try going to Propertyguru or 99.co and do a search and you will find that at any one time there are almost 80,000 residential property sales listing on each portal and almost 20,000 rental listings each.
Sometimes when you are browsing your Facebook and you probably will see a few videos, selling some resale or new launch properties. And you may likely see this on Youtube too.
Over the weekend, you could receive many flyers (if you are staying at HDB flats) or mailers show casing resale or new launch properties for sales. While watching television, you may also see new launch developers advertising their properties. The developers will even put the advertisement up on buses and public advertisement space too. Some times, even your property agent friends may send you information about properties for sales.
What the above means is that when come to selling properties in Singapore, the competition is very high.
So now you are thinking to sell your property, and you are wondering how to start? Where do you begin and what should you do if you want to be on top of the competition to sell your property at the right price with the shortest time? Today I'd like to share these simple guides.
Know your yourself
There is absolutely no right or wrong, but to me this should be what all sellers should do first before anything else.
The first step to start is to do a financial plan on the sales of your property. This is to check what is your net sales proceed after you sell your property at valuation price. In order to calculate that, you should check the valuation of the property from various sources.
To me, the better way is to get valuations done from a few banks. Getting valuations done can also help you in negotiation when buyers make any offer. The purpose of doing valuations is to help you set your appropriate selling price. It will not be a good idea to set a much higher than valuation price as this may turn prospective buyers away.
If the property you are selling now is your home, after you know what is your net sales proceed, you should plan for your next property purchase and the transition time line.
I am sure you do not want to be caught in a situation where you and your family have no where to stay after selling your property. In doing up the plan to purchase a new property, you should get to know what is the maximum property price you can go for, the capital outlay, the financial commitment and many other important items & issues. This plan will sound out to you if it makes financial sense to sell and buy a new property.
The transition time line is often the most tricky part and may involve temporary renting of a property or taking loan. This should be planned before you make any commitment to sell and buy a new property.
Know your competitors
Like what Sun Zi says, "know yourself, know your enemies, win hundred battles", it will be to your benefit to know who are your competitors.
What is their asking price? Which floor and unit are they selling? How is the condition of the house? Who are the owners? Why are they selling? These are just some information you should find out so as to position your marketing plan correctly and adjust your asking price if necessary.
Love at first sight
Imagine going for a viewing of a property, before you even step in, you are greeted with a smell. Standing at the door of the property, you see the abundance of rust on the gate and peeling of paint on the door.
Once inside the premise, you are overwhelmed by the amount of things in an unorderly manner. The walls are dirty, and the ceiling is full of algae. You can't see and visualize how the house can be your home or for anyone to stay. I'd say 90% you will be turn off and will not consider to make an offer.
But on the flip side, if you step into a property, with designer decor and furnishing, proper spacing, nice ambience, nice smell, proper lighting, and many other attributes that make you feel good, my guess is this property will probably be one of your top choices and very likely you will make an offer.
Very often, the first impression counts and it does play an important part when selling your property. Grooming and beautifying your property is something many sellers miss out.
Another part in making your property look good is taking good photos and videos. In order to attract prospective buyers to want to come see your property, your photos and videos must be appealing.
Exposure
You spend lots of time planning to sell your place. You put in a lot of effort to make your property looks good, and take up much of your time and effort to take and edit the property photos. But what is the point of doing all these if no one knows you are selling?
So how do you broadcast? You can try newspaper. Nowadays hardly anyone uses classified ads to search for properties. You can print out your sales brochure, drop it in the mail boxes of HDB flats or mail it to property owners.
Maybe try those DIY portals for sellers? But when you do a google search, many times you can't find their portals on the first 5 pages. We are in the digital age where property selling portals used by agents, social media and video marketing are dominating the market. To have your property expose effectively, you need to ride on these platforms.
Presentation
So now you manage to get many people know about your property. Some prospective buyers like to view your property. When buyers come to your place, how do you conduct a presentation?
Or do you just leave the buyers to roam around hoping they will like it? A presentation is important because this is the part where you can convince the buyers that this is right property for them to stay or to invest.
You want to emphasize and highlight all your positive aspects of the property and downplay any negative part if its being brought up. Your presentation should include many other positive information like the convenience, the connectivity, future developments, etc.
You should plan for your presentation efficiently and less time consuming. Why? Imagine you have 5 buyers want to see your place on the same day. Some want to come while you are working or during late night. It will be very tiring for you to do the presentation again and again.
You can consider conducting an open house. If you tired yourself out or rush through the presentation without giving the buyer some time to feel the place, the chance of making an offer will be slimmer.
During this Covid19 Circuit Breaker period, many buyers nowadays may request for a virtual viewing. You should also prepare presentation slides and be well verse in using Zoom to conduct virtual viewing.
Closing the deal
This is it! This is the part you are waiting for. The buyer make an offer, but you are disappointment, because the offer is too low. You are just wondering what is wrong with this buyer. You should understand that seller will always want to sell high and buyer will want to buy as low as possible.
If you are the buyer today, I am pretty sure you will offer low first. But making the low offer doesn't mean it stops there. Talk to the buyer, make a counter offer that is closer to your asking price, show the buyer why your counter offer is reasonable with information like the valuations and others to support your price.
The key is to meet somewhere in the middle between the buyer's price expectation and the seller's. If the final offer price from the buyer is not too far from or at the valuation price, you need to make a call to accept or not.
There is no right or wrong to this. Some sellers say lets wait for more offer. But if you know the competition is high in your estate or the demand is low, it may be a good thing to accept if the offer price is within or near to the financial plan you did in the beginning. To me, a bird in your hand is better than a hundred flying around in the sky.
Above are just some simple guide to sell your property. There are many more to consider and plans. If you ask me, selling a property can be very time consuming if you are doing it yourself.
Nowadays, property sales and marketing is unlike the olden days. It has gotten more complex and more competitive. Selling property is almost like doing a full time job if you look at the scope of the entire works.
There is one more alternative. You can find a competent property agent to take up the whole works for you at market rate. Some sellers want to save the 2% agent fee and pay very little. Not wrong to do so, but I believe you pay "peanuts you will get monkey" and
cheap service doesn't come good and good service doesn't come cheap
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