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Home Seller's: Don't Leave Money On The Table
Selling your home is not a trivial decision. You've probably spent a lot of years of living there, have lots of sentiment, emotions, experiences and monetary commitments. You worry about ending up leaving money on the table when you sell. You have lots of questions and apprehensions in your mind. While many of these can be answered by your Realtor, there are some subtleties that are entirely dependent on what kind of person your Realtor is.
Your Realtor should be one who is sensitive about finer details, and must guide you sufficiently enough to make that extra little expense to give your home a proper fit and finish, and a polished look to be really attractive to a prospective buyer. Not doing so is essentially leaving money on the table - the money you spend would be for most part far lower than the return this small expense would yield. I see many homes where the Sellers may have benefited immensely had they been guided properly, and had agreed to spend some extra time preparing their homes through creative, inexpensive ideas. These are mainly around the finer aspects of what you present to a buyer to motivate them to make an offer quickly.
Of course, if the situation for the seller is unfortunately desperate, and selling the house 'as-is' (such as in a short sale or foreclosure) is the only option, then spending the extra little on the finer aspects is out of the question. I totally understand that situation.
In addition to my own opinion, speaking with many fellow real estate agents, who have had more successful sales than usual, a pattern emerges into what factors contributed to the difference. Some of the common set of things that their clients followed yielded them great results and I share these below.
Follow these surprisingly simple tips to yield you great results in your quest to prepare your home for a very successful sale.
Provide More Planning Time
A good many number of sellers assume that from the time of signing the listing agreement, the house should be on the market within a week or so. The amount of time set aside for planning to get the fit and finish done on the house is often overlooked leading to last minute hassles, costs, and agony for the seller. As your Listing Agent, my goal is to help you lay out the product-readiness strategy along with a list of things you could do to prepare your home for its best possible presentation with a reasonable cost and time estimate.
Start with asking yourself this question : If I were a buyer of my property, would I buy it in the current condition without hesitation?
If the answer is a firm, unflinching 'Yes', then there ya go, you are half way into getting the sale done. Regardless, the following are essential treatments that will help you sell your home with good offers.
Boost Curb Appeal
Boost your curb
appeal for a great first impression. As buyers enter the property, the very first impressions are the ones that carry them through into the house. The positive vibes generated from the entry point to the entry door is essential for creating the want in the buyers' minds. Make it a point to beautify your front yard and your back yard - the place where a buyer would imagine a place of solace and comfort. Curb appeal can be achieved by clearing out dry vegetation, thick foliage, dry and balding lawn patches, excessively laid out shrubbery and plants that can create a messy, unkempt look. In addition, a fresh coat of paint to the exterior of the home, and a well paved crack-free driveway adds to the appeal of a home. These do not cost much to fix. Of course, a great look can be achieved by using paving stones and designer landscaping as well but those can cost quite a bit. For most people, just working with a combination of laying new lawn, mulching, and flowering plants, along with a clean pressure-washed driveway will do the job in a relatively inexpensive manner. Adding a white fence around the perimeter of the front yard is another good way to boost you curb appeal.
Spruce Up With Relevant and Sale-Worthy Upgrades
As a seller, you are probably wondering if you should do that costly upgrade that you put off for years. Unless your house has a very dated look and will have the effect of turning off potential buyers, save your money. Spend some of it with minor upgrades by adding trims where none exist, replacing counter tops alone, and painting the cabinets instead of replacing them, replacing worn out or dull looking kitchen flooring with bright linoleum or tiles, and replacing carpets with either newer carpets or new hardwood or laminate flooring. Make sure your bathrooms have an updated look though through a combination of painting and tiling work which are usually not very expensive. The scale of expense grows with each upgrade that is beyond minor embellishments. A good coat of paint with neutral colors will do wonders.
Remove All Clutter
Its close to the open house time and you still have some random items and flotilla occupying crucial space. Should you care to take these small, seemingly unobtrusive items out of the way? Absolutely. Remember, you are trying to make the house be very attractive so that potential buyers can imagine as their own. Anything that is personal to you should be out of the way and not in closets. Besides you do not want some of the small items to be easy pickings for some stranger walking through your house. Pack these away in neat marked boxes so you can locate them as soon as you are done selling. Similarly, your front and back yard should not have any sign of clutter or unsightly items lying around.
Do Not Stuff Closets and Garage
Buyers do look into the Garage and every Closet space. If you must leave some items, make it very sparse. Do not stuff these areas as it can turn off any one. I have seen houses where closets are so full of stuff that opening the door could cause a major crash of things popping out. Bad idea. A neat closet and Garage may not yield you top dollars but a stuffed up closet and Garage will force you to leave money on the table.
Decorate Interiors Or Use Staging Services
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Decorating interiors is a great way to get the polished and upgraded look and feel. Many decoration materials can be bought from local craft stores and home maintenance stores. A very good way to address all of the above issues with interiors is through the use of Staging Services. As your Realtor, I can bring in any number of approved and accredited service providers including Staging Services who will put up furniture, decorative items and show pieces including paintings et al to make it look absolutely stunning. Staging readies your house for maximum visual appeal.
Price Your Home Right
Pricing your home is your priority and no one else will have the best way to express the sale price as much as you do as you have lived at the place. Your Realtor should provide you with the right type of information to help you decide on the right price. A higher price suggestion may indicate a higher commission return so watch out for those signs. While looking very attractive for a seller in terms of Return on Investment, this strategy of pricing high without doing a thorough CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) and study of market trends, puts you, the Seller, at risk of having your home sit on the market for a long time. The longer a property sits on the market the less attractive it is for buyers and tempt you to lower the price, a source of major embarrassment. Avoid this by getting the price right. Pricing a property correctly is key to selling it quickly. Ensure that your realtor provides you with a good set of comparables, and ask enough questions around the pricing so you can arrive at a value that you think is reasonable for your home. Ask your agent for high price watermarks, and low price watermarks, as well as the prevailing per square foot price in your area so you can arrive at a competitive price for your property. This will contribute to yielding you rich dividends. Couple this with a good staging service or your own effort to present a beautiful home, and you could get higher offers and sell your home quickly.
Avoid Staying Home During Open House
Hours
There, I said it. Many sellers think they would lend a hand to the buyer by providing some historical perspective to buyers on their questions around the house and locality. If anything, this makes buyers unsure. In addition, buyers do not want to be disturbed while viewing a home. They would like to independently evaluate the house without the current owners' influence. This makes for a better, easier, faster sale.
So Are you Ready to Sell ?
As your listing agent, I will provide you with a team
of service professionals to help you prepare your home for sale. Do not hesitate to ask me as many questions as you have. My goal is to enable you to sell your home with a worry-free, smooth, enjoyable experience.
Author Ranjana Shreedhar, Realtor:
If you are planning to Sell your house, learn how to make
the most for your house in this market and to attract the best offers
for your valuable property. Call me for a no-obligation evaluation, and a
listing presentation at 408-861-8026.
My goal is to make the sale of your home smooth, successful, and worry-free, with my core marketing skills, integrity, and exceptional service!
If you are in the market to buy your dream home, learn how I can help you find your dream home, and be there for you throughout the purchase process. My goal is to make you a happy and proud homeowner.
If
you or any of your friends are in the market to sell or buy a home in
the Bay Area, I'd be delighted to help you or your friends, as the case
may be, achieve your real estate goals with exceptional service, high
integrity, and market savvy.
Contact me through Email or on phone (408)861-8026 or through the handy contact form on this page.
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