Prospects want to be sure that the house they are purchasing is worth it, so potential purchasers will tend to look for negative issues that will dissuade them from purchasing your home. These are natural parts of a sales process, and they are called “objections”. One of your jobs in getting the home ready to sell is to figure out what objections a buyer will likely have and either overcome them or address them up front. Anticipating objections require a bit of homework; here is how it works:
Use the five (er, four) senses
What will a buyer see, smell, hear, and touch when they get out of their car and walk into your house?
People make decisions based on emotion, so your buyer will remember how they felt in your home more than any one thing they saw. You need to give them emotional moments, which you can create by feeding all their senses in one moment. The best time to do this is when they first walk into your home. After all, we all know what they say about first impressions.
Here’s what you do: Stand at the doorway to your home and look around. What do you see? Is it neat and tidy? Can I see to the end of the house or is there a wall in my way? It needs to be visually pleasing. For example, if there’s a wall in front of you when you walk in, hang a nice mirror there.
What do you smell? Is there a pleasing smell when someone walks in? If not, think about putting an air freshener. No strong smells though! It needs to be gentle and pleasing.
What do you touch? Does your door handle feel sturdy and quality? If not, you should consider replacing your door handle with something that feels like quality.
What do your hear? if there an air handler in a closet next to the front door or a dog barking in the back yard? These aren’t pleasant sounds so they need to be addressed before you let anyone in your home.
Check the curb appeal
We talked about what happens inside the house, but the experience of stepping out of their car may be even more impactful. There’s a lot you cannot control about the neighborhood, the neighbors, road noise, neighbors’ dogs, etc., but you can apply the same principle to the outside of the house that you applied to the inside to give a potential buyer an emotional connection to the home.
Conclusion
People make decisions based on emotions and that’s especially true for homebuyers. To get them to a place where they will make an emotional connection to your home, use their senses to give them a good impression. Ideally, you want that moment to occur when they walk in to the home.