From my personal experience, here are some of my best tips for a seller to market his/her home to attract the most buyers, resulting in more offers and selling at a higher price!
1) Applying a coat of fresh paint, installing new fixtures and updating landscaping are all easy and affordable ways to give your home a beautiful makeover without breaking the bank. There really is no other home improvement that will give you a higher return than a fresh coat of paint on the exterior and interior of the home.
2) Especially in the event of having professional photos taken, make sure to maximize the light in your home by taking down the drapes, cleaning the windows, changing certain lampshades, increasing the wattage of your light bulbs, and anything else in order to get more natural lighting in the home. Professional photos, especially with homes that are staged, will drive the most interest from buyers and bring the most traffic to open houses and private showings.
3) Fix as many minor problems in the home as possible prior to professional photography and listing it on the market. Simple things you can do are to fix broken light bulbs, cracked windows, update electrical switches, fix obvious leaks, repair areas with peeling paint and remove stains from the floors and carpet. These are the first things a potential buyer will see as he/she walks through your home and a purchase offer from them will reflect the repairs needed to make the home move-in ready. Even after going into escrow, the last thing you would want is to risk a deal falling apart over issues that are found during a buyer’s home inspection. Nothing will kill a sale as quick as a buyer coming back from a home inspection and finding big or unexpected surprises.
4) Although de-cluttering and depersonalizing the home are all a part of the staging process and done before professional photography is taken place, it isn’t all of it. To sell your home quickly, your home needs to be decorated in a way that highlights its best assets. You don’t want to be leaving family photos, religious affiliations, sport team memorabilia, etc., hanging around. You want a buyer to come into the home and be able to envision themselves and their families living there.
5) Go on the market at the right time! Although it is not impossible to sell a home in November or December, if you have the option to sell in the spring, you are much more likely to have success. Because there are more buyers out looking during the spring and summer time, your best bet is to list no earlier than late February so that you can take advantage of the heavy activity.
All of this being said, the most important tip of all is to choose your realtor wisely! Make sure you have an agent that is very informed and in tune with the market. A great realtor will be constantly monitoring the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and know what properties are going for in the neighborhood and the comparables. Your realtor must be tech-savvy and have both online and offline marketing tools to get your home seen by the most people in order to get your home sold at the highest price. You want to make sure your realtor will price the home right and recommend you several tactics (such as the ones mentioned above) to make sure all of the showings go well. A stand out realtor will also ask for feedback from all showings, letting you how to improve everything- instead of just sticking a lock box on your front door and coordinating showings.
Hope all of these tips come in handy for when you’re about to sell your home!
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