What You Need to Know About Selling a Luxury Home in Austin TX
Austin luxury homes continue to be one of the fastest growing housing segments in Austin. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be just as careful and strategic about selling this valuable asset, as you would in a slower market. Selling a luxury home in Austin has its own set of unique qualities and considerations, especially if you want to get the best price for your home as quickly as possible.
Austin Luxury Homes: The Home Sale Preparation Process
When you’re looking to sell Austin luxury homes, make sure to interview a variety of Austin Realtors®. In addition to finding a top Austin luxury Realtor® to work with, you’ll want to meet with your financial adviser and review any tax or asset questions before your luxury property goes on the market.
With Austin luxury homes, there’s a good chance you’ll get offers from cash buyers. Cash buyers can be great for moving the sale along more efficiently, although they often expect to get a better deal simply because they’re paying in cash.
If you want top dollar for your luxury home, make sure you work closely with your Austin Realtor® on proving the value of paying more. Be proactive, and begin gathering your documents. For a high caliber home, the blueprints are a useful and sought-after commodity, as are manuals and any materials needed for the home’s systems and appliances. Make a list of the prices you’ve paid for any luxury amenities, renovations, and improvements, and ensure this list is passed along to potential home buyers.
Tips for Marketing Austin Luxury Homes
Proper marketing is a crucial element in getting the best price for Austin luxury homes, and because this task falls primarily on your Realtor®, it’s important to ensure that the agent or broker you choose has the expertise and experience necessary to sell your home.
When you’re considering Austin luxury Realtors® to work with, here are some things you’ll want to find out:
- Does your Realtor® have an adequate amount of experience, not only in selling Austin luxury homes, but also in selling an adequate amount of property in general?
- Do they have the expertise to sell a home with the special features, upgrades or architecture your Austin luxury home possesses?
- Does your Austin Realtor® have strong relationships with other Austin real estate agents within and outside of your area? Many sales are done through networking, particularly when it comes to Austin luxury homes.
This guide will help you get started with how to find the right Austin TX real estate agent to sell your home.
Your real estate agent should tailor their marketing to fit the demographics of your individual home. Creativity and thinking outside the box are important to ensure your Austin luxury property stands out. While glossy print and direct marketing materials have been a mainstay for marketing luxury homes in the past; today, utilizing the Internet and social media are a must. Speak with potential real estate agents about how they plan to market your home, make sure they can express their ideas to you, because once you sign with a real estate agent, you’ll be working together for many months.
Choose a Realtor® with a great website, strong social media presence, excellent testimonials and references, and the ability and interest to use mobile technology to respond to potential buyers; many home buyers do an Austin home search on their tablets or phones.
Austin luxury homes require quality photography as an integral part of the marketing process. Make sure your agent works with professional real estate photographers, who have quality equipment and the best lighting to capture your home’s phenomenal features. Ask to see past photography the real estate company has done on other Austin luxury homes. Ask if your Austin luxury home will have virtual tours, drone footage and video, and what the costs for those will be.
As the homeowner, and the one who knows your property best, consider whether photos during different seasons or at night could highlight your Austin luxury home’s unique attractiveness. Are there specific shots of your property that may be best at particular portions of the day?
Utilizing the Austin MLS for Your Luxury Home
While sellers of luxury homes sometimes prefer not to list their properties on an Austin MLS search, and instead do a pocket listing, this isn’t always helpful for marketing purposes. An Austin MLS listing will increase your exposure tremendously, to other agents and to potential Austin home buyers. For example, the Austin area has approximately 12,000 Realtors®, all of whom have clients, and few of whom will know about your property without utilizing the MLS.
How Open Houses Affect Austin Luxury Homes
Open houses, however, do not work on the same principle. While it can be debated whether open houses are useful in selling homes of lesser value, it brings up unique issues with high-end homes. A more expensive, unique home attracts a wide audience, with some who are not in the market to buy the home. Unfortunately, it can also attract the unscrupulous few, who are more interested in the assets inside your home than anything else. A Broker Open may be more successful, especially if the brokers who specialize in Austin luxury homes are able to attend.
Staging the home is another great way to maximize price and minimize the time your Austin luxury home spends on the market. It makes it easy for a buyer to envision their luxury lifestyle, when elegant decorator items, details and quality enhancements already appear throughout the home. Remove any photos, artwork or other items that could potentially offend a buyer, such as those depicting your political or religious beliefs.
How to Price Austin Luxury Homes to Sell
One of the most important aspects of marketing Austin luxury homes is setting the appropriate price. In Austin, according to the 2016 Texas Luxury Homes Report, the median price of a luxury home at that time was $1,381,252.
It takes an average of two months longer to sell Austin luxury homes than a median-priced home in Austin. Pricing the property correctly will help it move faster. An experienced Realtor® will do a comparative market analysis. It will include the basics, such as size and neighborhood, but it will also include the specific location, view, and the unique amenities of your house and property. For special homes with no comparables, it is recommended you hire a professional appraiser to determine the price. They have access to data and tools that Realtors® don’t have.
As to when to list Austin luxury homes, there may be a season when your property is at its best. If so, consider that aspect when you put it on the market; usually, a good time for selling luxury homes in Austin is in the spring.
While any homeowner can benefit from the experience and expertise of a great Realtor®, the unique aspects of selling Austin luxury homes does require someone who can bring those assets to the table. An agent or agency’s ability to connect with luxury home buyers and other Austin luxury Realtors®, the agent’s marketing savvy, their negotiation skills – these things can all make a difference in the timeframe that your Austin luxury home sells, and the amount that you are able to collect on your investment.
Feel free to contact Habitat Hunters, Inc. to learn how we’ve helped owners sell their Austin luxury homes since 1972. Let us share our experience, knowledge, and passion with you. Please schedule an appointment to speak with a highly qualified Austin luxury Realtor® today. Info@HabitatHunters.com, 512-482-8651.
