03/15/2022
✨🏡 How to Get Your House Ready to Sell 🏡 ✨
Even in a hot seller's market like we are in right now, there are a few things that you should keep in mind when thinking of selling your house.
1. 📝 Research your local housing market 📝
First and foremost, make sure to do your homework on the value of your home. Start by talking to a real estate professional and start researching the local housing market. Take a look at comparable sales in your neighborhood to figure out the appropriate listing price for your home. Pay attention to the various comps, square footage, features and location. Finally, think about how they compare to your home. For example, your neighbor’s home may have sold for $400,000, but if your home is considerably bigger or smaller, you’ll most likely need to list your house for a different price. Of course, a reputable real estate professional, will be able to assist with finding the right comps and determining a listing price for your house.
2. 🏠 Find a listing agent 🏠
Speaking of Realtors, I highly recommend listing your home with a professional real estate agent or team of agents. When interviewing a listing agent, be sure to ask about their experience in your neighborhood, connections to potential buyers, marketing plan, and social media expertise.
3. 💡 Lighting, lighting, lighting. 💡
Go ahead and stock up on light bulbs! When showing your house to potential buyers, all light fixtures and lamps will need to be turned on. For this reason, it’s important that all lights in your home have working light bulbs.
4. ✨🧼 Give your house a deep 🧼 ✨
First impressions mean a lot! So don’t let unpleasant odors, dirty floors or dusty surfaces make a bad one on a potential buyer. In this market, many potential buyers are also looking at new construction. Before listing your home (and throughout the selling process), give your home a deep clean. This means cleaning toilets, wiping down surfaces, mopping floors, cleaning rugs and scrubbing bathrooms. Consider calling in the professionals (think: Stanley Steamer and a housekeeper) to ensure that your place is in pristine condition.
5. 🗑 Declutter your house 🗑
Decluttering and organizing your space will go a long way in appealing to potential buyers. When a home is clutter-free, buyers are able to focus on the actual home instead of on the junk, knick knacks and overflowing closets. Consider renting a storage unit temporarily. Selling a home successfully for the highest price possible will involve some decluttering and purging of your belongings. For this reason, go ahead and rent a storage unit before selling your home. Having a self-storage unit nearby will give you somewhere to temporarily place all of your extra stuff when staging and showing the home.
6. 🌹 Depersonalize your house 🌹
When selling, you want to strike the perfect balance between depersonalization and creating a warm, welcoming home. This means putting away the majority of framed photos, bulletin boards and personal items (think: photo albums, magazines, toys, equipment, awards, etc) throughout the home. Leave a few nice, framed photos around the house to make the home appear inviting and lived in.
7. 🔨 Make necessary repairs 🔨
When getting ready to sell your house, make a list of anything and everything that needs to be fixed (for example: locks, screens, doors, windows, plumbing, broken appliances, squeaky doors, etc). Contact your local handyman or contractor if you are unable to do the repairs yourself. Take care of these things before listing a house, otherwise, buyers may think your home hasn’t been well taken care of, which can be a turn-off for many.
8. 🎨 Fresh Interior Paint 🎨
A fresh coat of paint goes a LONG way! Start by painting over those bright yellow and red walls with modern, neutral colors. Stick to whites, light grays, light beiges. “Greige” and “Agreeable Gray” are both popular colors. These shades will make your home appear bigger, brighter, updated, and more welcoming. Adding a fresh coat of paint to your home will not only help to repair any of the wall's previous blemishes, but it will also help your home smell fresh, clean, and offer a blank slate to potential buyers.
9. 🪑 Stage your home!! 🛋
According to multiple studies, staging a home really can help it sell faster and for more money. Fortunately, staging your home’s interior is easy and affordable. Don’t forget to also spruce up your home’s curb appeal when staging the home. After all, the outside of the home is the first thing potential buyers will see when they pull up for a showing. Make sure that the grass is cut, the yard is landscaped and the knick knacks are gone (think: garden gnomes and children’s toys). If the exterior of your home is looking a bit tired, you should also consider adding a fresh coat of paint to the exterior as well.
10. 📸 Hire a professional photographer!! 📸
Seriously, don’t skip this step, even in a hot seller’s market! Given that many potential buyers search for homes online, it’s extremely important to include high quality, professional photos to your online marketing. Without excellent high resolution images, potential buyers may (sadly) overlook your home. Some agents may want to skip over this step because the market is so hot right now and the house may sell quickly, but that is leaving YOUR money on the table.
✨💰 💴 ✨Your home is likely the biggest investment that you have. You owe it to yourself to be sure you are getting the most money possible from your biggest investment. When you hire me as your real estate professional, you'll get an entire TEAM of highly skilled professionals working together to get your home sold for the highest price possible. Schedule an appointment so that we can go over our marketing plan with you. 386-631-0183
