10 Killer Tips For Selling a Home
Selling your home is going take some work, but just because it will take effort does not mean it needs to be any harder than necessary. By being smart about how you use your time and energy, you can smooth the way for a sale that satisfies your goals and lets you realize the full potential of your property. Below you will learn some of the best advise for selling a home. These home selling tips include pre-sale preparation for both the interior and exterior of your home.
The following tips are tried and true – ways to make selling a bit easier and maybe even more profitable. Try a few out, or if you are a real go-getter, all of them! You are sure to see some benefits if you do.
Selling Your Home – 10 Tips You Can Definitely Use
1. Take care of your landscape.
Some of the first things buyers are going to notice as they pull up to your house are the landscape – lawn, plants, flowerbeds, etc. Now you don’t have to be extravagant, install a fountain or even hire a professional, you just need to tidy up and make sure things look neat and preferably alive if possible. Mow the lawn, trim your bushes and buy a few bags of mulch to pour in the flower beds to tie things together. In real estate sales, first impressions count. This is one of the simple improvements that will increase home value. Make it count!
2. Remove clutter.
One of the most cost effective home selling tips is to make your home clutter free! You want to maximize the perceived space in the home. The more clutter, the more uncomfortable things will feel. Go through everything and clear out all the non-essentials. Even if you don’t feel like going through all of your stuff and sorting them, you should at least put things away in places where buyers won’t be looking – so no cramming stuff into closets or the garage. Rent a storage space if you need to.
3. Paint your interior if it needs it.
Dark, dreary colors can shrink the perception of space. Old, stained paint makes rooms look decrepit. By painting with contemporary colors and ideally with a little insight from a knowledgeable Real Estate agent or interior designer, you can change the whole feel of your home. There is not another home improvement that will give you more bang for your buck than a fresh coat of paint. From a selling standpoint, it is important to stick with neutral colors. Remember selling your home is not about personal preferences but appealing to the masses. Stick with off white and light creamy colors for maximum benefit.
4. Hire a great Real Estate agent.
If you are noticing a trend here, that’s because there is one. Working with a professional to sell your home has a ton of benefits, and takes a lot of the heavy lifting off of your shoulders. An experienced Realtor like myself can often sell your home faster, and for a better price, than you can on your own. This, in fact, is one of the most valuable tips for selling a home.
Before a real estate agent even begins their work of selling a home they can be a great source of knowledge in pricing your home correctly. Without the right price, everything else you do will be meaningless! Don’t be like so many other sellers who put a pie in the sky price tag on their home. This is a sure recipe for failure.
A cluttered home can make your home feel a lot smaller than it is. This is not a good thing when trying to get the most you can out of your sale. Today’s buyers like bright open spaces unfettered by an abundance of someone’s personal property. Keep in mind there is a significant percentage of the population who do not have vision. Make things easier on the buyer by giving them something they can visualize.
5. Consider a professional cleaning.
A clean home is inviting to buyers, whereas a dirty home can turn them away faster than just about anything. The easiest way to know your home is spotless and looking its best is to hire a professional cleaning company. Make sure your kitchen and baths are spotless. Buyers will pay closer attention to these areas. In addition make sure your carpets are as clean as possible. If need be consider having your carpets professionally cleaned. This is one of those things where spending a few hundred dollars can save you thousands by preventing the buyer from thinking they need to replace the carpets immediately.
6. Make sure you repair the things that your Real Estate agent advises.
Many renovations are arguably a bad investment for sellers, as it is hard to get your money back in the sale. But if your real estate agent advises that you fix some things, like faulty wiring, a hole in the fence, a leaking toilet or a visible stain in the ceiling, you should do it. These are things that the buyer may balk at, or demand a lower price because they feel immediate attention is needed. Secondarily when the buyer does their home inspection more than likely they will be trying to renegotiate the sale price or worse asking to back out of the deal.
One of the things I constantly stress to my clients is being well prepared for the buyers home inspection. This is the number one place where home sales fall apart. It only makes sense to address the problems before hand. If you know about a problem, a good home inspector will more than likely find it.
7. Address all odors.
Smell is powerful, and can easily drive someone away from buying your home. However, you may not even realize the smells are there. As your Realtor of choice I will let you know if there are any unpleasant odors – like pet or cooking odors – and address them before showings. Believe it or not pet odors can kill a home sale. This happens because some buyers fear they won’t be able to get rid of the odor once they purchase the house. Don’t take any kind of chance with home odors – remove them!
8. Make your kitchen appealing.
Many buyers are very focused on kitchens, which is why you want to make sure yours is reasonably appealing. Formica counter-tops from the 70s may need to be updated, and you might want to install a new appliance or two if the existing ones are in really bad shape.
9. Get organized.
The people that are looking at your home are going to open every door, including closets and the garage. You may help your sale by making sure these areas are relatively organized. The better they look, the easier it is for buyers to imagine that they can fit all their things in the home. This again goes back to one of my previous home selling tips of DE-cluttering. Organizing your closets and garage should be done as part of the process.
10. Take your pets somewhere for showings.
It is hard for pet owners to imagine sometimes, but some people really don’t like pets. As a dog or cat owner, you may not want to hang out with such people, but they might make a great offer on your home. Take the pets somewhere safe and comfortable, like a friends. Having evidence of your pet, including their odors can be a real turn off to some people.
There you have it – these are some of the best home selling tips to get you on your way to a successful home sale!
