Sellers aspire to receive multiple offers when their home goes on the market. Unfortunately, this does not happen for everyone. There are, however, steps you can take to increase your chances of attracting buyer interest. Here are a few of the common strategies used to generate offers for your new listing. 

1. Price it aggressively.

When it comes to pricing your home to generate quick offers or multiple offers, an aggressive strategy is used. The excitement around scoring a great value could cause more buyers to show up to view your home than if it would if priced higher. In real estate, more showings are an inescapable prerequisite to more offers.

This doesn't mean you have to undervalue your property significantly. Work with your agent through the comparable sales data – as recent and as comparable as possible – and then do your best to list your home at a slight discount, compared to the recent neighborhood sales. That will get buyers' attention.

2. Give buyers and brokers ample access.

Put yourself in your target buyer's shoes. Many SWFL buyers live out of state and have a short window to view homes while in town. If they can't view your house because there are too many restrictions around showing it, you could very well be removed from this buyer's consideration list. 

It might seem overly simple, but if you want offers, it behooves you to make sure your home is available to be shown (nearly) every day that it is on the market. Inconvenient? Yes. Frustrating? Sometimes. A challenge to keep the place clean at all times? Assuredly. But consider your priorities and what is at stake. If selling your home is at the top of your priority list, then you have to be ready and willing to deal with the inconvenience involved in churning up offers and getting your home sold.

3. Make it beautiful.

Really, really beautiful. The homes that get multiple offers or quick offers are those with the look, feel, and function that can be described in one word: covetable. You're not trying to create a situation in which your home barely edges out the listing down the street in the hearts and minds of your target buyer. If you want multiple offers, you need multiple buyers to fall deeply in love with your home – enough to bid above the listing price, and enough to compete with others for it.

Prepare your home by ensuring it is: 

• Immaculately cleaned from the inside out – closets, basements, garages, and crawl spaces included
• De-cluttered and staged to the nines – this includes fresh paint and other things that need replacing 
• In perfect working order – make sure things like doors, windows, and systems buyers test (e.g., stoves, faucets, heating, and air conditioning) are not creaky, wonky, leaky, or otherwise dysfunctional.

If you've done any major home improvements or replaced any appliances or systems lately, market that! Show off how immaculate, charming, and move-in ready your home is now, and tout its great working condition for the long run.

4. Expose it to the market.

 An offer the very first day your home goes on the market may sound like a dream come true. But it might also incur opportunity costs. See, many buyers can't get out to see homes as soon as they hit the market. As we mentioned, some are out of town, or can only house hunt on the weekends. Experienced listing agents often plan from the start to expose the home to the market long enough for target buyers to see it and get their offers on the table.

Some agents expressly include open house and offer review dates in the timeline of the listing. It fast-moving markets, it's not uncommon to see a listing come on the market with a calendar of 1-2 Open Houses and an offer date sometime early in the week following the second one. Ask your agent to brief you on the standard practices for market exposure in your local market.

5. Be ready to course correct.

Is your home one of the houses that has been sitting on the market for months without any action? Do not fret – there might still be hope. In real estate, there's something insiders call the Sweet Spot Phenomenon, where a home sits on the market for months with no bites, sometimes even through multiple price reductions. Finally, the price hits the 'sweet spot,' and generates action. 

If your home has been lagging on the market, talk with your listing agent about what sort of price reduction strategy is likely to maximize your net sale price. Hint: many buyers are attracted by chunky reductions or reductions below a common online search price point limit than by tiny, incremental reductions.

For example, you might draw more buyers, and ultimately more money, with a price reduction from $799,000 to $774,000 than with a series of small reductions from $799,000 to $779,000, because there is a set of buyers who may be cutting their search off at $775,000 – so a price cut below that point will expose your home to a whole new group of prospects.