1. Work with an Experienced Luxury Home Sales Realtor

Of course, that would be us! All realtors have their specialties, but it is imperative that the team you choose knows the ins-and-outs of selling a luxury home, especially when it comes to pricing and advertising.

2. Hire 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. When you hire us, you get full staging as part of our Luxury Division package. 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 to view the property without being overwhelmed by your own personal style.

3. Price Setting

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 really worth.

Our team is really good at finding a happy middle ground 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.

4. Photos Matter– Think Quality and Quantity

Bad photos don’t cut it in the standard real estate market, and definitely won’t in the luxury market. To provide you with the best, we invest in high-quality photos, virtual tours, floorplans, etc. Drone photos and videos also provide buyers with everything needed 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 important, particularly when it comes to appealing to international buyers, who often make up a lot of the luxury buying market but can’t always come out to see a property firsthand.

5. Market Wisely

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

6. Skip the Public Open House

We want to cultivate an air of exclusivity when selling your luxury home, which means, in part, ditching the public open house in favor of appointment-only viewings. There are a couple of benefits to doing it this way: You make buyers feel that seeing the property is a privilege, and you refrain from having an open house that could be filled mostly with lookie loos who are just curious about what the property looks like.

With luxury sales, your buyer pool and viewings will be limited, but that’s okay! It’s much less about getting as many buyers as possible through the door as it is about getting the right buyers through the door. Luxury buyers are not coming to a public open house. If our clients are interested in an open house, we host an invite-only event. Remember exclusivity is key!

7. Focus on What Makes Your Home Stand Out

Back in the early 2000s, the term “McMansions” took off to describe a certain subset of luxury homes that were large and expensive but relatively tasteless. We help you avoid falling into the McMansion trap by working to distinguish your home from other properties at the same price point—specifically by downplaying the routine/standard things that buyers will find elsewhere (such as quartz countertops) and focusing on the things that make your home special (such as the heated floor in the bathroom).

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 be mentioned as assets in any written marketing materials. We don’t assume that your home speaks for itself and that buyers will see its best features when they come for a viewing, we lead with those features, and let them be the pull that brings the buyers in.

8. Develop a “Brand” for Your Home

One of the keys to effectively marketing and selling anything is building a distinct identity, and the same goes for your Luxury home. We create a focused message that guides all of your marketing materials. Your brand identity doesn’t need to be overt, but it should underlay the marketing strategy.

9. Perks Matter

The more value you can offer, the better, especially if there are other Luxury properties for sale that are marketing 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 added bonuses is a good way to separate yourself further from the competition and help give you the edge that you need in a saturated market.