Step 13 To Selling a Home: The First Week Your Home Is On the Market

The first week your home is on the market will likely be the "busiest." While we don't have a crystal ball, it is typical that, when your listing is labeled online as a "new listing" and your home is popping into people's MLS feeds, social media channels, and listing search result emails as a home that's newly on the market, we will get not only the highest level of online traffic (those "first showings" we've discussed), but also the most actual foot traffic with buyers who want to see your home.

We typically like to launch a new listing on a Thursday or Friday, so that it's hot, fresh, and new for the weekend. This is why we don't like to launch a listing if our marketing is incomplete. We sometimes have sellers who need an extra weekend to get prepared or who have something happen last-minute (like a seller who recently had a bathtub overflow and leak through to the garage below right before photos and wanted to "skip photographing those spaces, for now") -- we know this is when we will likely get the most virtual and actual traffic, so it's worth waiting a few days and launching a complete listing a week later, rather than launching an incomplete one now and adding marketing as we go. 

How To Prepare

Since we prefer to be the hot, new listing for the weekend, we like to prepare you in advance for a few things:

• Prepare to be out of your house -- a lot -- in the first weekend of showings. Some of our clients will just plan to be out of town and will plan a trip to the beach or to the mountains, plan to go visit family, or simply plan some day trips -- spending a nice day at the community pool, planning a hiking trip to north Georgia, or another activity to take them out of the house. We cannot guarantee showings from sun-up to sundown...but that is highly likely in a market with very low inventory.
• Plan on last-minute showing requests. When your listing is brand-new, especially in the first 48 to 72 hours, buyers will likely be texting and emailing your listing to their agents with urgent requests to see your home. While we would love for every showing request to come with 24 hours' notice, in the first weekend, especially, this is not only difficult to guarantee, it's a nearly impossible expectation. Think of it this way: every request to see your house is a compliment -- someone likes what they see online and can't wait to see it in person!
• Plan to keep your house showing ready at all times. For at least the first week, and maybe stretching into two or three weeks (and certainly for the weekends), plan on just keeping it in showing condition. We know you also have to live there (unless you've already moved out), so here is our guide to getting your house ready for a showing in 15 minutes or less, for those times when life just gets in the way!

What To Expect

• We will call, text, or email you with all showing appointment requests -- even the short-notice ones. We want you to know of every request, and we leave it up to your discretion as to whether you can accommodate. Even if we have discussed times that aren't "good" showing times for you (such as a child's naptime), we will still send you the request during this first week on the market. Many of our sellers will make exceptions during this first weekend/week, and then we can institute tighter restrictions once we are through the "feeding frenzy" of the first week of showings.
• We request feedback from every showing agent, but it may take us a few days to hear anything. And that's if the agent gives us the courtesy of a response. We will try for several days after an agent shows to get feedback from each showing -- via phone call and email survey. We have about a 50% response rate. In general, if we don't hear something fairly quickly from an agent, your home just wasn't the right house for that buyer. We will more often hear if there was a substantial concern about your house or if your home is a serious contender. So while we know you are eager for feedback, more often than not, no news is simply that: no news. Nothing good but nothing negative. Just not the right one.
• We will be in touch immediately when we do receive feedback -- or even better, an offer! Rest assured, we will not waste time in getting any feedback to you (positive feedback is just nice to hear and any concerns or negative feedback may give us an opportunity to fix something that we didn't notice or make any changes). 

The first week of your listing will seem busy and stressful and exciting and chaotic; we will do our best to keep you well-informed!