8 Tips on How to Sell Your Home Faster and for More Money
By Rick Merlini
Certified Professional Master Builder
Professional Real Estate Sales Trainer
2 Time Builder for ABC Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Every body believes their home will sell fast and for more money. It is natural to believe this because it is YOUR home and everybody will see it the way that YOU do. Right?
Well, in reality is does not work that way? When a prospective buyer walks through your home, they have no emotional attachment to the home. They walk through your home with a fresh set of eyes with no past good or bad memory of the home. They are just looking for the best home for their family at the best price.
I believe that before you put your home on the market, you should ask someone you trust to give you the brutal truth about your home. Ask this person to walk through your home with you and give you their opinion of it. Together create a list of items that may need repairs. Remember, when a prospective buyer walks through your home, they are not looking for reason to buy the home; they are looking for reason why NOT to buy your home. Therefore, the key here is to minimize those reasons.
So, now that you understand your prospective buyer a little bit better, what do you need to do to sell your home faster and for more money?
1) Remove your emotional ties to your home
- You must say to yourself, this is just a house, one of many that are on the market. IT IS HARD TO DO, but once you are at that place in your mind, you will have a better chance of selling your home.
- You must convince your self that this is the right decision for me and moving to another home to start new memory is what is best for me and my family.
- c. Bring a true friend, someone who will be completely honest with you or a person you trust in your home and have them walk through with you and ask them to give you their absolute honest opinion of the home. Have them point out the good and bad features of your home.
2) De- Personalize your home. You are trying to present a home that could be someone elseÕs home instead of your home.
- a. Remove all the family photos that are hanging everywhere, put away all the trophies and blue ribbons your have won over the years. Have your kids take down the posters that are hanging on their walls of the people they admire. Give the prospective buyer a chance to envision himself living in your home. You need the buyer to say to themselves that "I can see myself living in this house"
3) De-clutter your home, both the interior and exterior!!!!! A home that has clutter will never show the way a buyer wants to see a home. A home that is well organized will show like a home that your prospective buyer wants to buy.
- You never really understand all the stuff you own until you go to move. It is important that you realize it BEFORE you put your home up for sale. A good rule of thumb is if you have not used it or moved it in the last 6 months, it needs to thrown away or put in a storage area.
- If you do not have the proper storage area available, you can either rent one or, if the item has value, donate it to someone else who may enjoy it.
- Go through your home from top to bottom and organize every room in your home such as closets, garages, and basements, go through your cabinets and have everything inside them organize.
4) Remove any built-ins or anything attached to a wall in your home that you plan on taking with you and that are not part of the sale. If you plan to remove a chandelier that has been handed-down throughout the years, remove it NOW. By doing so, it will not become a problem later down the road once you do get an offer.
5) Make as many repairs as possible to your home before you put it up for sale.
A home that shows like it is ready to move into without many repairs will sell for more money and sell faster. The fact is that 99% of the people purchasing a home will bring in a home inspector to walk through the home before the contract finalizes. What usually happens is a home inspector walks through the home, creates a list of items that needs repairs then gives that list to the prospective buyer. Now remember, it is the job of the home inspector to list as many items as possible. The more items he lists, the better it looks to the prospective buyer and the realtor representing them. It makes it look like the home inspector is doing his or her jobs. To avoid MOST (but not all of this), make as many repairs before and not after you have an offer. Take it from experience; you will save money in the end if you do them before. Please feel free to download our 7-part checklist of things you should go through BEFORE you put your home up for sale.
6) Make the home sparkle and smell like a home that you would like to live in.
Wash your windows and your floors, vacuum before every showing, and light candles to give the home a pleasant smell. Make sure you have your carpets either replaced or steamed cleaned. Carpeting can hold odors for years.
7) Paint is cheap and if done correctly can bring emotion to a home.
The fact is that paint is cheap and can make a room or home feel and look new. The second fact you must know is that people buy emotionally and not logically. With that said, find out what are the most popular current colors that will blend with your furniture and permanent fixtures in your home. Once you have identified them, bring them into your home to make it look new and fresh and to bring emotion to it. Look, even if they do not like them, they will be easy to change. They will remember your home whether they like it or not.
8) Last and probably the MOST important is to make your home have curb appeal. Remember, first impressions are everlasting and the first thing a prospective buyer see is the exterior of the home as they pull up to it. If the buyer cannot envision herself living in your home, she will not purchase it. So make sure you follow our list and
- Clean up the landscaping beds. Have the beds weeded and the bushes trimmed.
- Power wash the exterior of the home to make it clean.
- Paint and replace rotten wood that may need attention.
- Fertilize your grass so it is as green as possible if weather permits.
- Plant some flowers to give the front of the home some color
Remember, people who sell their home fast and for more money are not just lucky.
They prepare their home to SELL!
We at Property Preservation can help you get your home prepared to sell and we can help you repair or improve your next home purchase. Please feel free to contact us and lets us show you how we can help.
Our sister company, ForeclosureMadeez.com, can help you sell your present home and find you a great deal on your new home!