Quality Selling Fast

by Darrin DeRoches September 27 - October 3, 2012

Fall is officially here and it is starting to get cold but Hamilton’s real estate market is getting hotter by the minute. We should all know by now that we are number one in Canada and Ontario for real estate and investment (if not hit up viewmag.com and look at my past articles) but all I see around the city is “sold” signs. I am getting calls about properties even after we have a conditional offer with people hoping the deal falls apart so they can jump in and scoop it up. This is not just happening in one part of the city, it is happening all over.     One agent listed a property in Rosedale area with three bedrooms, garage, driveway, deck, steel roof, new windows, new kitchen and 2 baths. I am familiar with the property. Since I was doing a market analysis for a property I am listing it was a great comparable. I called the agent who informed me that the seller had already purchased a new home and wanted a quick sale – so they decided to list at $264,900. They put the property up on the market in the morning and within 9 hours it sold for over asking. Since I knew the agent, I had to ask if they had priced it low to get multiple offers? He stated it was priced to sell fast since the client had already bought and did not want to wait to sell. This only confirmed that my new listing can ask even more than what the seller was thinking.     Later in the week I was talking with a colleague who had a property sell in Ancaster. It was priced over a million dollars but sold within days for top dollar. It was a beautifully built builder’s home and worth it’s price tag but to have a home over million dollar sell that fast was impressive. The common thread in both of the properties – Quality.  If you have a property that is in good shape, and priced right, it will sell fast. There are other homes in both of these neighbourhoods that have been listed and sit on the market, but properly marketed homes, staged and priced right are blowing them out of the water.     So if your property is worth 100 thousand or over a million dollars, consider the time it will take to properly market the property and the rewards you will reap in time and money. Take a little time to do the staging, cleaning, painting etc. Since the market is moving fast it will be time well spent. You can only make a first impression once, make it count and you will sell your home fast and you can then spend your time counting the extra money you made on selling your home in a hot market. V     Darrin DeRoches is a local real estate and mortgage broker. He can be reached to answer questions, comments or stories about real estate experiences through this weekly column at mail@uniquerealty.ca.