San Francisco, California and the wider Bay Area in general, pose unique challenges for sellers even when prices are sky-high and inventory is very low. With San Francisco being one of the highest cost-of-living areas in the country, people are looking for a very strong investment when they buy property, so selling a house there really requires a fine touch. Here are four key factors to selling a home in San Francisco fast.
Make Sure You Choose Experienced Agents
Agents who have worked extensively in other markets may simply not understand the San Francisco atmosphere yet, so your best bet for a fast sale is going to be working with a real estate agent that has sold homes comparable to yours within the Bay Area. With factors like interest rates and consumer confidence and inventory shifting every day and every week, a strong agent will be able to help you make a choice with all the factors in mind so that you aren’t stuck with a home that hasn’t sold even after many days on market.
Price Correctly
Your strong real estate agent will be able to give you a ballpark on how they’ll find buyers and what price those buyers will pay, but that doesn’t automatically translate to a price. In some contexts, pricing the home lower than market and hoping for multiple above-asking offers is the right way to sell fast, while other times, pricing at or above market will be more likely to get you the exact offer you want and need. Let your agent help you think through whether a given pricing strategy will work for you, being very honest about what features drive your potential price up and down in the current market.
Evaluate Cash Offer Potential
If you’re not sure about finding an interested buyer for anywhere near the value of the home, it’s well worth exploring the estimates that cash buyers are willing to give you. While cash buyers can also purchase after you list your home for sale, some companies are ready to make you an offer before you ever formally list, so exploring this can give you a “floor” of what price you want to get for your home.
Make Use of Data to Understand Interest and Adjust Your Marketing Plan
While your home may technically rate a certain price and should, on average, attract a buyer quickly, the exact day you list you may find that there is crickets given some combination of market shift, home features, location, or price. This is why you want to have any data and analytics generated by the marketing of your property to inform your choices: if the home is getting tremendous traffic, you have likely priced well or can expect multiple offers. On the other hand, if there is lower-than-average traffic to your various digital ads or other methods of sharing out the home’s listing data, you may want to figure out how and when to drop the price to up the interest. A great agent will have experience making these moves and can help you get that home sold.