Have you asked yourself, ‘What’s the big picture?’ when it comes to selling your home?

There are plenty of reasons why you may decide to sell your home this year. Perhaps you have a desire to live near the beach, or it may be for a reason that’s less than cheerful but more out of necessity, such as death or divorce. Perhaps you’ve decided it’s time to upsize, downsize or simply bring about some change in your life. Whatever your reasons for selling, it’s really important to sit down and outline some clear objectives and work out what’s really important to you when it comes to putting your home on the market, buying a new home or renting out an existing premises.

Setting goals early makes selling your home easier later

The reasons for this are twofold. To begin with, setting goals and objectives are useful when it comes to finding a real estate agent who will be able to sell your property in a manner that suits your circumstances. If the your reason for selling is purely lifestyle driven and not due to any external forces then you’ll want an agent who’s on board with this rationale.

It helps your agent if they understand your motivation for selling, as it’ll surely be a question they’re asked by prospective buyers. But it also helps you to build a rapport with your agent, which is such a crucial ingredient in the agent-vendor relationship, and without which, many sales campaigns can stall or lack direction.

It’s important to remember that if you don’t have a clear outcome for your property in mind, then it’s difficult for your agent to achieve one for you. If your sales agent begins to sense that maybe you’ve changed your mind about selling, this could have a significant impact on the campaign by allowing interested buyers to slip through your hands.

Have a strategy that helps with the decision-making process

So, remember why you’re selling. Listing your home for sale and looking for a new home is a real drain on your time, emotions and, quite possibly, your finances. Be crystal clear about your motivations for buying, selling or renting out a property. If it’s to upsize, downsize; if it’s due to financial factors, death, divorce; if it’s simply for a lifestyle change; write it, along with the outcome you’d like to achieve, down on a piece of paper and use it to stay focussed. This will aid both you and your agent in deciding how to deal with the many decisions that you’ll need to make along the way.

Strategy for a slow sale

One of which, and this brings us to the second reason for setting goals for selling, is deciding what to do when your property has been on the market for a long time and it hasn’t sold yet. There are three main courses of action you can take here.

It’s not ideal, obviously, but it’s really important that you have a plan for how to move forward. Even though the property market on the Lower North Shore is currently very buoyant, if it does happen that interest in your property is less than expected, having a clear set of goals and objectives will help you to make decisions that are right for you and your family.

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