So you have decided to put your home up for sale and are taking the necessary steps. Most homeowners aspire to have fast transactions where they offer their home for sale and promptly locate potential buyers. So, you can get the funds and give the keys. Hopefully, that’s all there is. There are many things you can do to prepare your home for sale.
Some circumstances may be within your control, while others may be beyond your influence, such as the location that can impact how long you can keep your home on the market and how much you can increase the listing price. Where competition is fierce, and supply is limited, they will sell faster and charge a higher price. In areas where home sales have slowed, homeowners will probably have to exert greater effort to attract qualified buyers.
There are still efficient ways to sell your house, much simpler and hassle-free, even though several factors may impede the sale. This article will help you prepare your home for sale and get top dollar in the process.
Prepare Your Home For sale with a home inspection
Prepare Your Home For Sale: Set a Timeline
One of the most time-consuming tasks is selling a home which might take three to five months or more, depending on the current state of the real estate market conditions and the availability of comparable properties.
Also, when you are done deciding to sell your home, immediately begin researching a home buyer agent to select one with the appropriate experience who can help you find a new home.
Start preparing your home for photos by arranging and deep cleaning about a month before you list it.
Partner With A Top Real Estate Agent
There are numerous advantages to hiring a real estate agent. With the help of a skilled real estate agent, your home will receive adequate exposure. The more people who know about your home, the more probable it is that you will be able to sell it for the highest price.
A qualified listing agent uses a more fact-based method to estimate a suitable asking price, pulling similar recent house sales within a defined radius and comparing your home to them. Your real estate agent can help you determine a fair market value for your home if they are objective and have no personal or financial ties to the property. Hence, there are numerous advantages to selling with a top real estate agent.
There are many things to do to sell your house, including pricing, paperwork, buyer negotiations, and more. Check to make sure that your agent is a REALTOR, which means he/she is a member of the national association of realtors (NAR) or equivalent body, such as the Canadian Real Estate Association.
Make Necessary Repairs
Now is the moment to address all the nagging issues you have previously tolerated. Inside the home, search for signs of neglect, such as stained ceilings, missing tiling, damaged windows and doors, highly scarred floors and damaged light fixtures. Examine the outside for missing or damaged shingles, patio pavers, and tuckpointing. If you have a deck, inspect it for floorboard cracks and wobbly rails. Write down everything you find, and then prioritize your list. Give worn walls a fresh coat of paint, and fix that leaky faucet. Make a quick to-do list and tackle one item at a time.
Get A Pre-Sale Home Inspection
By performing repairs with other house preparation tasks, sellers can expedite the selling process by being a few steps ahead of the buyer. This leads you to the fact that by the time the house is placed on the market, it ought to be all good when selling promptly and without incident. A pre-inspection gives home buyers a quick overview of the condition of your home. An often overlooked step to prepare your home for sale.
Follow A Home Inspection/Appraisal Checklist
Some repairs may be unneeded but would cost that amount to complete to pass the house inspection or home assessment. If you’re going to engage in expensive renovations, ensure that the improvements you make have a high rate of return. It makes little sense, for example, to install brand new kitchen counters if your current ones are still in good condition. In addition, these things to do to sell your house might not really be that essential to selling your properties for high values, especially if there is a shortage of comparable properties in your neighborhood.
Most cases, the best return on investment comes from updating the kitchen and bathrooms. If you have old cabinets, you can give them a new look by just replacing the doors and hardware. For example, you can change the doors on your standard kitchen cabinets to modern Shaker-style ones on the weekend without spending much money.
A property maintenance company undertakes a comprehensive visual inspection and reports on different safety, health, and mechanical issues that do not meet state standards or a buyer’s mortgage requirements. You must consider issues such as water damage, roof condition, electrical issues, and structural flaws that could have a detrimental impact on the future appearance of the house.
Prepare Your Home For sale by staging and rearranging furniture
Rearrange Your Furniture
You should arrange your furniture to provide a homey atmosphere for families. Furniture can be used as a marketing strategy to create an appealing atmosphere and staged photos to showcase your home’s features. Push the furniture against the wall. You may make more room for people to talk if you move the sofa and chairs away from the walls.
Some furniture removal may be necessary to make the spaces more passable. If you’ve ever viewed a model house and thought, “I could just move in here,” that’s the kind of sense you’re striving for. When lifting, make sure you’re following safe procedures. One option is to hire a professional stager, which is becoming very popular, especially in slower markets.
Choose Low-Maintenance Materials
Last-minute home improvements, such as new flooring or countertops, should be made from low-maintenance materials. Potential purchasers may be put off if they spend a lot of time cleaning or fixing anything up. Make your yard appealing to purchasers without putting them off with a lot of work that would need to be done.
Help to prepare your home for sale by cleaning and staging each room
Declutter And Depersonalize Each Room
If every room in your house is filled with your family photos, personal items and family heirlooms, prospective buyers will have difficulty visualizing themselves there. Even worse could be the case if your home is so crammed full of valuables and furniture that potential buyers need help imagining how to move around.
If you want your rooms to feel spacious, avoid an overstuffed arrangement that can be a little too much to be a part of the things to do to sell your house. Extra furniture leaves practically insufficient space between buyers and their agents since this may be both unpleasant and pricey.
Therefore, the easiest way to declutter is to tackle it one space at a time. The living room, the primary bedroom, and the kitchen are all good places to start when clearing up clutter. In the end, it’s important to think about them all. If your home lacks the necessary storage space, renting a storage unit is also a good idea.
Clean Your Home Top To Bottom
Clean the entire home, top to bottom. From tops of doors, to door handles, window ledges, floors, inside the oven and top of the fridge. A clean home will go a long way to attracting a good offer.
Don’t forget about offensive odors, which are categorized in three types: Pet smells, tobacco smells and cooking smells. An offensive smell is often the first thing a buyer notices.
Don’t Forget Curb Appeal
You never get a 2nd chance to make a first impression. From the very first time they walk up to your front door, potential buyers are already making a subconscious decision. Thats why first impressions matter. Make sure your walkway is clean, front yard and rear grass is cut and shrubs are manicured.
Prepare your home for sale and show it in the best light possible with a professional photographer
Get Professional Photos
You should coordinate with your real estate agent to have professional marketing images taken of your home. Having professional-quality pictures taken is essential, as this may mean the difference between a quick sale and a property that sits on the market for months.
Some real estate agents use professional photography and internet virtual tours. If they do not, though, you may need to find a photographer on your own. Professional photography costs will vary depending on the size of your property, its location, and the time required to photograph the property.
A good portfolio shows that a professional photographer can make rooms look bigger, brighter, and more attractive. The same is true for your lawn and other outdoor spaces. Online photos that need to be better lit can turn off buyers before seeing the nice bike path nearby or even the new roof you just put on. This is why it’s important to take good photos. A good real estate agent knows to hire a professional photographer for this job.
Check Your Home’s Estimated Value
It is essential to set a fair price, as purchasers in even the most competitive markets will only pay what the comps (like properties) indicate. Setting the price too high can backfire, but putting it too low can mean leaving money on the table.
This is a good time to remind yourself that an accurate house appraisal can help you set realistic expectations and the right selling price before you ever offer your home for sale. This valuation can be obtained in a few different methods, with support from various sources, including
An Experienced Agent
A knowledgeable real estate agent who is familiar with the area can use a CMA (comparative market analysis) to give you a good estimate of your home’s value. To back up their claim, agents can look at what the market has been doing regarding similar house sales or what they often refer to as “comps.”
A Digital Valuation Tool
You may get a rough estimate of your home’s current value with the help of an online tool like a value estimator. The value estimator only requires you to answer a few basic questions about your home before applying various algorithms and performing a market comparison to provide you with an estimated value. The method often yields a figure that is 90–95% close to the true market worth of your home.
Ask Expert Opinion Before Investing.
This could be a great resource if you have yet to learn how much your home is worth or have a very unusual or expensive property. Remember that appraisal estimates move in tandem with market price changes.
Price It Right
A good REALTOR®️ knows how to set an appropriate listing price. Never forget that although the home seller sets the asking price, its the BUYER who eventually determines the VALUE.
Set To Sell
Planning and preparation prevent unplanned and unprepared actions. Even if you have to work to prepare your home for sale, following our checklist will help you finish it in no more than three weeks.
As soon as your home is prepared for the market, you may start advertising it. Typical methods include posting it on real estate websites, running ads in local publications, and holding open houses. A real estate agent can help you find possible buyers and negotiate the best deal.
Review each offer for your property carefully before deciding whether to accept, counter, or reject it. If you get a request, working with a lawyer or title business to finalize the sale and transfer of ownership is the next step.
Also read our tips for selling your house fast here.
In Conclusion
Selling a home is complex, and there are important things to do to prepare your home for sale that calls for extensive forethought, advertising, and haggling. You can improve your odds of making a sale by learning the market value of your home, making necessary repairs, and advertising your property widely. In addition, engaging with the best real estate agent can provide invaluable insight and support. If you put in the time and effort upfront and properly prepare your home for sale, selling your home can go off without a hitch.
Author Bio:
Author Name: Liran Koren
I’m Liran Koren. I’m a real estate pro and co-founder of Luxury Property Care. I believe that through common work we can create a healthy ecosystem that serves investors, landlords and even tenants altogether.
Additional Info On Home Staging
About the Publisher
Bo Kauffmann is a residential real estate agent with over 18 yrs experience in helping buyers and sellers achieve their goals. Inducted into the REMAX Hall of Fame in 2010 and receiving the REMAX Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, Bo has sold over 500 houses and condos in the Greater Winnipeg market. He is an accredited buyer representative (A.B.R.) and a Luxury Home Marketing Specialist.
Bo provides exceptional service to First-Time Home-Buyers, Seniors looking to downsize and Home Sellers of all ages.
He can be reached easily By E-Mail or call/text him Call/Text Here
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