5 'Verbal Staging' Statements Sellers Should Make.

1. Tell Us: Anything in or around your homethat is ‘new’ (or nearly so). To a buyer, seeingfeatures, amenities and appliances described asnewish creates several connotations beyond thedictionary meaning of the word:

• ‘New’ implies modern: in look and functionality. Newappliances, furnaces, and finishes like paint andflooring simply have efficiencies, functions and anaesthetic style that older ones don’t.

• ‘New’ implies clean: the suggestion is that even themost germaphobic buyer won’t have to fumigate theplace with various disinfectant sprays to expungedecades' worth of cooties (imaginary or otherwise).

• ‘New’ implies less work for your home’s eventualbuyers - especially if what’s new is a necessity thathome buyers often have to buy before they can movein or a cosmetic item that home buyers often like toreplace (i.e., carpet, paint, fridge, etc.).

2. Tell Us: Your home’s dominant features. Ask yourself: what’s the very best thing about this place? Then ask again until you have maybe a handful of items. That handful of things may contain great content for your home’s marketing materials.

3.Tell Us: Anything that’s exceptional aboutyour home - the things that differentiate yourhome from the competition. Is your homelarger or does it have more bedrooms than theaverage home in your neck of the woods? Isyour lot bigger or more private? Is your homethe lowest priced listing in your super-chicsubdivision? Does it have water? No rearneighbors where most properties aresurrounded?

4.Tell us: The features your home has that you know buyers crave. If your home has uniquely compelling features compared with its competition, then say so. But even if your home’s features are not so unique, if it has some nuts-and-bolts features that give it wide desirability for a large segment of buyers in your area, express and emphasize them.

5. Tell us: Incentives, extras and details thatmake the transaction easier or more favorablethan a buyer would expect. If you or anyoneelse is providing any sort of bonus or incentivethat promises to make the transaction even asmall amount less expensive, smoother, easieror faster than the norm in your area, call it out!

Insider Secret: Keep in mind that prospectivebuyers may only see a few lines of your home'sdescription online, and may not be able to seeeverything that would go on a flyer, or even thedetailed or agent-only remarks that local agents cansee on MLS listings. So after you talk with yourRealtor about which of these ‘verbal staging’ pointsto include, it's important to actually view yourhome's online listings to ensure buyers can actuallysee the important points.

Realtors: Besides the basics (beds, baths, square feet and the like), what home descriptors fall into your bucket of things you must include

in a listing description or property flyer?

Randy BettInvestment Realtor/Author/Investor

Real Estate Professionals Inc.Better Group Real Estate 202-5403 Crowchild Trail NWCalgary, AB T3B 4Z1

Phone:403-774-7464 Ext:1Fax:403-208-0082Toll Free fax:888-711-6801

Randy Bettwww.BetterGroupRealEstate.ca