Selling Your Home With The Least Difficulty
Selling a house is difficult, and it can take a lot of time. However, this need not necessarily be the case. There are always ways to optimize your ability to find the right buyer for your home. Following, we’ll explore a brief checklist of steps worth considering as you seek to sell your home. House Heroes can help you get the balance right—every home is different!
Get An Agent Unless You’re Deeply Savvy
How well do you know property sales? How well do you know your local community? Have you sold a property? It’s not like selling a car. Well, it’s similar. Here’s the thing about apples and oranges: they’re both fruit, they’re both spherical, they’re both tarts, they’re both sweet, and they both have seeds. But they’re totally different. It’s the same with cars and houses.
A real estate agent will charge a percentage of the selling price as their fee, but it’s worth it. They know other realtors, they know who is looking to buy, they know what the market is doing, they know selling angles, and they know how to show a home. Plus, they’ve got an occupational incentive. If they sell your home, they get paid 5% to 6% of the total cost.
That means if you had a home worth $100k, the real estate agent would get $5k to $6k of the total price. For a $400k property, you’d be looking at $20k to $24k. An agent who sells two properties like that just paid for their living expenses throughout the year. Accordingly, they’ve got greater incentive than most homeowners, who are just transferring existing capital.
Still, if you can sell your $400k property yourself, you’ll save $20k to $24k or more—some real estate agent fees are as high as 10%–avoid those realtors! It’s better to get a cheaper fee, obviously. So weigh pros and cons. It could be worthwhile to try your own hand at selling for half a year. However, it’s probably better to get an agent if you’re not familiar with the process.
Make The Place Look Good From The Outside: Curb Appeal
Nobody wants to buy a run-down property replete with wilting plants, patchy grass, cracked pavement, peeling paint, and chipped roof tiles. But a house that’s well-manicured and attractive may just sell itself. Clean up the premises. Do some landscaping. It may even be worthwhile to totally redo the exterior of your home prior selling—this can increase list value.
If your yard needs some help, maybe install a sprinkler system and advertise the fact. Though, if you’re going this route, you probably want to get everything done a year in advance of showing the property so the plants can grow into themselves. It’s a risky investment, know your climate before sinking too much money into landscaping prior sale.
Make Your Home Looks Good Inside, Eliminate Personal Effects
Stage the inside of your home as best you can. Generally, you’re going to try to sell the property before you move. If you can start moving before you sell, that’s great, but this is a risky proposition. For most, they’ll have their home sold well before they move. Accordingly, you’ve got to keep the inside of the house spic-and-span.
Get all your personal effects in a box—nobody wants to feel like they’re usurping the position of a resident family. Posters, dioramas, picture frames, knick-knacks, fridge-drawings, etc.: put them in a box and store them until you’re in your new home.
Fix Honey-Do’s, Paint, Repair Scuff Marks And Doorknobs, Etc.
Fix that old fan, replace lightbulbs, add a lick of paint to the walls, paint over scuff marks, tighten door knobs, replace that cracked window, and maybe even complete a few pet projects like the installation of a DIY deck. Essentially, clean everything up as best you can, and figure out what would be cost-effective to add in terms of list value if you’re so-inclined.
Priming Your Home To Sell As Quick As Possible
Selling a home is difficult. However, it doesn’t have to be unreasonably hard; there are many things you can do to expedite the process. Do all the honey-do’s, repair the premises, add a bit of additional construction, clean the insides, eliminate personal effects, facilitate the highest levels of curb appeal, and unless you’re quite savvy, get a real estate agent.
There are a lot of things that go into selling a home, but if you put real effort into the process, you can sell the property for more, and even see some profit for the work you do in terms of increased list value.
