Who should carry out your viewings?
When considering who should show your viewers around your home, really there are only two plausible options. You or your estate agent? Agents have different opinions on which is best. Here at Sure Sales and Lettings we like to work with our clients and discuss the best way forward that suits you.
To work out which is better for you, let’s take a further look at each option:
Option 1 – You
Some could argue that you, the homeowner, knows your house best so therefore you are best placed to show a viewer around. Yes, you do know your house better than anyone, but this can be a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. Often homeowners, desperate to sell and make a good impression, can give too much detail or give the wrong information and put a viewer off. You, of course are probably very attached to your home, it holds many memories, good and possibly not so good. Often there is a story behind a move, an emotional story. One that probably your buyers don’t need to know the ins and outs of, but they get told along with other information they don’t really need to know just to make conversation. Whilst it’s great to build rapport with a buyer, a buyer needs to imagine themselves living in your home. With heavy emotions, happy or sad, this can be difficult. They need to think of your home as theirs not as someone else’s.
Buyers can also feel a little uncomfortable asking too many questions if the seller is showing them around. Frightened to offend, they can keep burning questions to themselves. This prevents them for finding out the information that they really want to know. By the time the agent phones them for feedback the following day it is too easy for them to forget.
The same fear of offending can also prevent a buyer from having a really good look around. Not wanting to delve around in the home too much in front of the buyer. Understandable really but not productive. A buyer needs to feel at home in your home, this means exploring it from top to bottom, understanding where the storage is and what space there is. This is far more difficult with you present.
Option 2 - Us
This is what you pay your estate agent for. Your agent is trained and very experienced in showing viewers around a home. They know the right things to say and the things to avoid. Of course, not to hold information back, we would never suggest that, but it’s about how they put the information across. A good agent will help the buyer feel at home and help them imagine how they would use the space. Knowing their buyer and knowing your home, making the links between the two that can help form an emotional connection and positive experience of your home. They will look for buying signals and show your home to suit the buyer’s needs.
Buyers are usually far more comfortable asking questions to the estate agent rather than the home owner. With the estate agent conducting a viewing they can relax, ask any questions they want and have a good nosey around without feeling they are going to offend anyone. They are also far more likely to give honest feedback to the estate agent. This is really important as it is vital to understand what viewers think of your home. When providing you – the homeowner with feedback it is too tempting to tell you what you want to hear in fear of coming across rude.
Honest feedback is essential to shape and adjust your marketing strategy going forward. For example, it maybe that you are receiving consistent feedback about your dated pine kitchen. Here you could look at economically updating the kitchen, through painting the cabinets and replacing the worktop. Making it fresher and more appealing. Your agent would redo your photographs to show the updated kitchen. Future viewers would be less put off by your kitchen and your home becomes more saleable from this small investment and from the key feedback you received.
Discussing a viewing strategy with your agent upfront will help you feel more relaxed about what is best. This way you and your agent will know your preferences and what works best for you and your home.
Prefer to chat about it? We’d be happy to oblige call us on 01283 537120
All the best
