Are you ready to move on?

A friend of mine has her house on the market. It’s a beautiful home, a true Grand Design; all glass and chrome, with stylish touches and contemporary gadgets. It’s been for sale for a few months now, in an area where properties usually fly off the shelves, but hers hasn’t attracted any offers yet. Surprising, not least because my friend is actually an estate agent. But it’s not the house that’s the issue.  Let me explain:

When you’re selling your home, you need to be fully motivated to move. After all, there are a lot of hoops to jump through, and challenges to face, along the way. From preparing your home for each viewing, to dealing with disappointing feedback, low offers and harsh surveyors’ reports, to putting your life on hold for months, and sometimes longer, until you finally get the keys to your new home.

To have the energy to rise to these challenges, you really have to be determined to sell your house. Over the years I’ve met with hundreds of sellers, and I’ve identified two elements that have to be present in order to sell effectively: they are, pain and desire.

Pain – to sell your home, there must be a really strong reason why your house – once perhaps your dream home – is no longer right for you. It could be that you have six children and only two bedrooms, or that your partner can’t manage the stairs any more. Perhaps the garden has become too much of a worry, or simply that the house isn’t in the right location for a new job or school. Whatever the reason, it has to be tangible, and you need to be able to express it. Without the pain of your current home, it’s very difficult to separate yourself emotionally from it enough to make the break and sell it.

Desire – where are you moving to? And why are you moving? Is it to be closer to family? Or to release some capital so that you can fulfill a lifetime dream of travelling, or buying a boat? Perhaps you have an amazing job offer, one that will offer you a better standard of living in your new home. Or maybe you are longing for space; more bedrooms, walk-in wardrobe, ensuite bathroom and  large garden. Your desire has to be achievable, and something to really get excited about for you to keep your eye on the prize.

I asked my friend, the estate agent, why she is selling her beautiful home. “Oh I just fancied a change,” she explained.

And where were they moving to? “We haven’t decided yet, nothing has really grabbed me,” she replied.

Until my friend digs deep enough to find the pain in her current home, and then finds a dream home she can desire with all her heart, she’s going to find that buyers for her current home are scarce. Once she finds her pain, and her desire, I’m certain that a buyer will magically appear. After all, her home is someone else’s dream home. Just as her next dream home is out there waiting for her.

If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.