How to Sell Your Kiawah Island Vacation Home from Far Away

Selling your vacation home from afar is easier than most people might think. While you may not be around to participate in every step of the home selling process, there are ways for you to make sure your home is ready to sell even from a distance. 

Below, you’ll find our expert advice for selling your Kiawah Island vacation home from afar. These simple steps will help you realize how easy it is to sell your home even when you’re far away (and working with the right Sales Executive). 

Step One: Choose Your Sales Executive

Speaking of Sales Executives, choosing who will be marketing your home is the first step in the home selling process. It’s important to do this first because your Sales Executive will not only be the one responsible for selling your home, but also refer you to local repairmen, home staging professionals, and more who will help prepare your home for sale. 

When choosing a Sales Executive, you want to be sure they:

• Have years of experience selling homes similar to yours
• Are well-connected within the community
• Have in-depth knowledge about your Kiawah
• Have a comprehensive knowledge of the current market at large
• Have a vested interest in helping you sell your home
• Are able to market your home professionally and successfully

Most importantly, you want to be sure they understand the buyer. The Kiawah Island market is unique, as are its buyers. If your Sales Executive lacks an understanding of who would be interested in purchasing your home, you need to invest your time in someone who does. 

Step Two: Plan a Trip to Your Home

Once you have selected your Sales Executive, it’s time to plan a trip to your Kiawah vacation home. Realistically, you may need to set aside time for a few trips to the Island to make sure your home is well taken care of prior to sale. While there, you’ll need to:

Stage the Home

Upon arrival, start by removing personal items. Take down any family photos or sentimental memorabilia and replace them with neutral decorations. Depersonalizing your space will allow prospective buyers to picture themselves and their specific decorations in your home.

Additionally, hiring a home staging professional may be in your best interest when selling your home from afar. They can make suggestions for reorganizing, repositioning, and replacing interior decor that will cater best to buyers. 

Clean the Home

Once you have a blank slate, give your home a deep clean. You want your home to look its best for potential buyers, so be sure all surfaces are dust-free and sparkling. Give extra attention to the main areas of the home, such as the living room, kitchen, dining room, bathrooms, and master bedroom. These parts of the home matter most to buyers, so it’s best to make sure these areas are spotless. 

Schedule Necessary Repairs 

While cleaning your home, keep an eye out for any repairs that may need to be completed before listing your home. Ask your Sales Executive to put you in contact with a repairman who can make the repairs while you are away. Be sure to chat with your Sales Executive prior to scheduling repairs as well. They will be able to advise you on what repairs to make, if any.

Ready to renovate? Check out these five presale renovations that will increase your home’s value.

Improve Curb Appeal

Is the landscaping around your home well-maintained? If not, spend time rejuvenating your curb appeal to attract potential buyers. First impressions are everything, especially on Kiawah Island, so be sure to schedule your home’s landscaping services during your visit. 

Step Three: Photos

Pictures say 1,000 words, right? When selling your home, especially from afar, having high-quality photos of your home makes all the difference. At Kiawah Island Real Estate, we take care of that for you. We work exclusively with our award-winning professional photographer to fully capture the value of your home. 

Having quality photos is important, especially when you consider that 92 percent of home buyers use the internet when browsing for homes. To improve our online experience even more, we also provide interactive tours of each home we sell. This allows potential buyers to picture themselves inside of the home — even if they’re far away, too. 

Step Four: Don’t List on the MLS

Yes, you read that right. While listing your home on the MLS may work for some markets, it isn’t ideal for selling Kiawah Island vacation homes. Here’s why:

• The MLS is limiting in regards to showcasing the uniqueness of Kiawah.
• The MLS prevents you from focusing solely on Kiawah Island buyers. 
• The MLS is dangerous to use without the proper expertise. 

Plus, we have a better, more streamlined process at Kiawah Island Real Estate for selling your home. To gain a better understanding of our sales strategy, read this snippet from our blog, The Benefit of Not Listing Your Home on the MLS.

“The ultimate benefit behind not listing your home on the MLS is that we have a practiced, improved, and streamlined process for finding potential buyers. Instead of using the MLS, we invest in ongoing research to help us target and define the ideal prospects for your property. We identify where they live, what they do, their household net worth, what they’re looking for in a property and community and more. 

Because of the reputation we have built within the community on Kiawah Island, buyers see us as a resource and come to us first — and we exclusively show them our listings. 

Our efforts work, too. In the past three years, we’ve invested more than $10 million to promote the Kiawah Island lifestyle and real estate listings through national online and print publications. As a result, a recent survey found that 69 percent of Kiawah property buyers used the Kiawah Island Real Estate website to find their Island home. 

Our investments — both monetary and relational — aide us in helping you find the right buyer for your Island home. We don’t need the MLS, and neither do you. We have all the resources we need to sell your home right here on Kiawah Island.”

Step Five: Create a Plan — And Stick to It   

Without a plan, and the help of your Sales Executive, selling your Kiawah vacation home from afar may seem like an impossible task. After all, when you take into consideration everything that needs to be done between now and finalizing your home’s purchase, your to-do list can seem overwhelming to say the least.

However, when you work with our team of experienced Sales Executives, you can rest assured that we will work tirelessly on your behalf to sell your Kiawah home. We know the Kiawah market better than anyone else because it’s our first priority and main focus. Unlike other real estate companies in the area, we don’t sell or market homes outside of Kiawah.

This allows us to give your home our undivided attention and locate qualified buyers who are looking specifically for Kiawah Island homes. Regardless of why you’re selling, or where you’re selling from, we can help make the process as easy as possible, giving you the peace of mind you deserve. Contact us to learn more about our team and how we can guide you through the home selling process.