Essential Guide to Preparing Your Home for Sale
Here’s a look at the strategies you should follow if you want to move your home from “for sale” to “sold” in the fewest number of days – something that should significantly reduce your stress level while selling.
1. Find Your Listing Agent
The first step? You need to find a listing agent who can market your home to the greatest number of potential buyers.
The key is to work with an agent who knows your market. This agent can tell you when you’ve received a fair offer and when you’ve received one that’s below market value. Agents can also help with the most important aspect of selling a home – setting the right asking price. If you set your price too high, you won’t receive many, if any, offers. If you set it too low, you might sell your home quickly, but you’ll also reduce the profit you otherwise could have earned.
2. Do Your Research
Explore Comps
One of the things your real estate agent should do is CMA (Comparative Market Value) Comparable properties are homes in your community that are similar to yours. Appraisers and realtors look at the sales prices of recent comparable properties to help determine the current market value of your home.
I recommend that after your agent completes your CMA then you should go and tour these comparable and see how they compare as well as how those sellers home look to a buyer. It will give you the advantage to how buyers will look at your home.
3. Declutter AND Stage
It’s important to have your house properly staged for when people walk through. This means arranging your house differently than you might if you were normally living in it. This is relatively inexpensive, and the person will be able to consult with you about the best way to lay out your space.
As a fair warning, there’s going to be a lot of stuff they’ll tell you to get rid of. There are two reasons for this: first, people want to imagine their stuff, not yours, in the room. Second, removing unnecessary items makes the room seem bigger.
Be sure to depersonalize the space by removing items such as family photos and memorabilia. You want potential buyers to visualize themselves living in your home. They’ll struggle to do this when they’re staring at photos of your family.
Do you have pets? You’ll want to remove any signs of them before buyers tour your home. This means removing litter boxes, crates, pet food and pet toys. You’ll also need to take your dogs or cats away when people are touring your home. Many buyers will be instantly turned off by the thought of living in a home that has pets. You should also give your home a deep cleaning to remove any potential odor that comes from your pets.
If you have too much stuff, consider renting a storage unit while your home is on the market. This way, you can move your items to this unit to create an airier, more open atmosphere in your home.
4. Do A Deep Clean
Your home needs to be clean if you want to impress buyers. A dirty, cluttered home will be tough to sell. That’s why it’s critical to invest either time or money in a deep clean before listing your home.
Focus on problematic areas such as your kitchen, closets and bathrooms. These rooms are key to selling a home. If they’re cluttered and dirty, buyers will be turned off. You should also make sure that your home’s floors are clean and polished, your rugs are steam-cleaned, and your windows are clear and bright.
You can do your deep clean yourself or you can hire professional cleaners.
5. Get A Home Inspection
Home inspections aren’t free but hiring an inspector to tour your property can pay dividends when you’re selling your home. An inspector will tour your home and property, looking for problems such as aging roofs, cracking foundations, dying appliances and termite infestations.
An inspector’s report can help you identify problem areas in your home before you put it on the market. You can then fix these issues before listing your property, eliminating potential problems before buyers have the chance to discover them.
Complete a pre-sale inspection.
When surprise fixes pop up during your inspection, it can drag out your home sale. In fact, in 2021 the National Association of Realtors (NAR) found home inspection problems cause 11% of delay and 9% of full-on contract terminations.
Typically, when you conduct a pre-sale inspection, a professional will examine your home before you put it on the market. That way, you can make pre-emptive fixes and protect against last-minute surprises that could hold up your sale. As you make updates, be sure you cover these common issues that come up during home inspections:
- Dirty air filters in HVAC systems
- Signs of pest infestations
- Plumbing clogs
- Cracked windows or broken screens
- Broken appliances
- Water stains on ceilings
- Leaky faucets
INEXPENSIVE UP GRADES THAT GIVE MORE BANG FOR THE BUCKS
Even if you don’t have months to prepare, it is possible to make some quick, inexpensive, upgrades to get your house ready for listing. By focusing on the areas with the highest impact and visibility, you can give your property an edge over the competition without going over your budget.
KITCHEN:
What you can do in the kitchen is change the knobs on cabinets to give them a new look. The same principle applies to handles on doors throughout the house. The door itself doesn’t change much, so the handle can give it a whole new look.
But new looks aren’t limited to doors. You can also add new drapes and blinds to accessorize windows. While these additions may not add a particular dollar amount to the value, they certainly add to the aesthetics that could motivate interested house hunters to put in an offer.
PAINT:
A fresh coat of paint is always a smart move. Adding new paint to your bedroom, living room and kitchen walls can bring new life to otherwise tired rooms. Fresh paint, in fact, is one of the most cost-effective improvements owners can make when selling a home.
Be careful with colors, though. You might like bright red or orange, but many buyers won’t. It’s best to paint your wall in neutral colors – think white, gray or beige – so as not to turn away any buyers not interested in painting over your purple kitchen walls.
LIGHT FIXTURES:
Upgrading your light fixtures is a quick, affordable way to get your home ready to sell. “This is a super simple and very effective way to add value to a home and attract buyers.
CURB APPEAL
First impressions are extremely important when it comes to selling your home. There are the basics, like making sure the lawn is properly manicured. Beyond that, you can take some steps to inexpensively dress things up. To give the house a little life and a pop of color, you can paint the front door in a trendy shade or buy potted plants and other things that you can easily take with you when you move.
New shutters can help give a different look to your house’s exterior. Also, it may help to power wash a grimy brick face and do the same thing to breathe new life into an aging deck or patio.
- Trim shrubs and trees
- Add outdoor accent lighting
- Plant some flowers and blooms
A few small enhancements to entry spaces can have a heavy impact on that first make-or-break impression, hook a buyer right away, and set your home up for a fast sale. Give me a call and ask about our 2024 referral program.
For more insights on Huntsville’s real estate trends or to connect with a trusted real estate professional, visit Terri Coleman, Your Next Door Agent, at www.myrealtorterri.com or contact her directly at (936) 581-4434. Specializing in North Houston, including Spring, The Woodlands, Conroe, Lake Conroe, and Willis, Terri is committed to serving and guiding clients through their real estate journeys.
