SELLING TIPS

The real estate market is different when you’re selling a luxury home. Suppose you have a high- end property to sell, everything from how you price it to how you market it has to be optimized for the right buyers. The higher up you go in the price bracket, the more you’re going to have to make carefully chosen moves that appeal to a subset of buyers with a lot to spend and a lot of expectations for what they’ll get.

If this is your first time selling a luxury home, you may be a bit wary about stepping foot into this exclusive market. The more money a house is listed for, the narrower the buyer pool becomes, which means you might have a long road ahead of you. But there is good news: Realtor.com’s luxury home index showed a 25% increase in luxury home sales across the U.S. last summer, with 17 out of 91 luxury markets seeing a 10% price growth increase year-over-year. So while the luxury market might be challenging, there’s a lot of action.

Overall, market trends are undoubtedly significant, but at the end of the day, it’s your job as a seller to do the best you can to sell your luxury property—and sell it fast. There are no guarantees in real estate, but there are certain things that you can do to make your luxury home stand out even more than it already does and rope in the right buyer. Here are tips for selling a luxury home that can help you edge out the competition.

PHOTOGRAPHY

When it comes to photos, think of quality and quantity. One of the most import-
ant things to do when listing your luxury home. Shoddy photos do not cut it in the traditional real estate market, and it’s certainly not going to cut it here. I can’t tell
you how many times I look at luxury homes and see dark and drab pictures; I have
even seen lousy cell phone pictures with an occasional thumb in the way. To get potential buyers into your home, you’re going to have to invest in high-quality photos and lots of them. Your realtor will be able to recommend a photographer for getting the job done right and can oversee the process.

Stunning photographs give your listing an extra boost. However, including videos,
virtual tours of the property, and drone shots can also work to provide buyers with
everything that they need to decide whether it’s worth coming out to view the property, especially if your home is on a lot of land. Having lots of imagery is essential, particularly when appealing to foreign buyers, who often make up a lot of the luxury buying market but can’t always come out to see a property firsthand.

PRICING

Find a balance when setting your price. Setting the correct price is one of the
trickiest parts of selling a luxury home. Price it too high, and you risk letting your
home go stale on the market; price it too low, and you might end up getting less for
it than it’s worth.

This again speaks to why it’s so critical to not just work with any real estate agent
but one who has experience pricing and selling luxury homes. It’s up to you and your
realtor to find the happy middle ground and settle on a price that speaks to what
your home has to offer and its true value without potentially deterring a large chunk
of your buyer pool. The goal is to remain competitive while also getting as much as
you can for the property.

STAGING

Bring in a professional stager. One of the most important parts of selling a home is
staging the property so that buyers can picture themselves living there. This is especially
true in the luxury housing market, where homes are often customized to individual
tastes. While it’s not necessary to strip your home down to its bones so that a new
owner can make it their own, they should be able to see the potential in it and view the property without being overwhelmed by your style.

Staging your home to sell is a significant undertaking, and it’s challenging to do on your own, so bring in a professional stager who can guide you through the process. In addition to helping you optimize your home for potential buyers to come through, a stager can also assist you in finding ways to highlight its most exclusive features.

MARKETING

Market wisely. When it comes to selling a luxury home, a yard sign and an MLS listing
shared on your Facebook page aren’t going to cut it. Luxury buyers aren’t looking for
homes in the standard places, so that’s not where you should be focusing your marketing efforts. It takes money to make money, so expect to invest in top-quality printed marketing materials, in addition to professional staging and photography.

OPEN HOUSE

Skip the public open house. You need to cultivate an air of exclusivity when selling a luxury property, which means, in part, ditching the public open house in favor of appointment-only viewings. There are two benefits to doing it this way: one, you make buyers feel that seeing the property is a privilege, and two, you avoid having to waste your time setting up your home for an open house that will likely be filled chiefly with non-buyers who are just curious about what the property looks like.

Because your buyer pool is limited, your viewings probably will be too, but that’s okay!
In luxury home sales, it’s much less about getting as many buyers as possible through the
door than it is about getting the right buyers through the door. And those buyers aren’t
coming to a public open house. If you want to bring in multiple buyers at once, talk to
your agent about hosting an invite-only event.

STAND-OUT

Focus on what makes your home stand out. Back in the early 2000s, the term “Mc-Mansions” took off to describe a specific subset of luxury homes that were large and expensive but relatively tasteless. Avoid falling into the McMansion trap by working to
distinguish your home from other properties at the same price point—specifically by
downplaying the things that buyers will find elsewhere (such as marble counter tops) and
highlighting the things that make your home so special (such as that wine cellar in the
basement).

The unique, high-value features of your home are your main selling points. They should be featured prominently in the photographs and videos on your listing and mentioned as assets in any written marketing materials. Don’t assume that your home speaks for itself and that buyers will see its best features when they come for a viewing—lead with those features, and let them be the pull that brings the buyers in.

PERKS

Offer some perks. The more value you can offer, the better, especially if there are other
luxury homes for sale that boast similar features to yours. Can you part with that grand
piano? How about that custom master bedroom furniture set? Sweetening the pot with
a few bonuses is an excellent way to separate yourself further from the competition and
might give you the edge that you need in a saturated market.

Like selling any property, you are selling a luxury property that requires a give and take
between your wants and desires and those of your ideal buyers. And although it may need a little bit of luck to sell your home quickly, having an excellent foundational strategy is necessary. Follow the tips above, and you should hopefully be under contract sooner rather than later with your luxury home.

_{By: Laura Miller}