It’s estimated that more than 40 million Americans move every year. All that moving means there are scores of American who are looking for new homes to move into.
If you’re thinking about selling your home or the best ways to sell a home, you may not have to wait long. With so many Americans moving and looking for homes, you may find that the home you put on the market will go quickly and you’ll get above your asking price.
While there are many ways to sell a home, you might be wondering to yourself, why exactly would I sell my home? It’s a fair question, but there are many good reasons to sell your home:
- You’ve simply outgrown your current home.
- Your current home has become too much to keep up with, especially when it comes to paying a mortgage.
- You simply have too much house to maintain, i.e. your home is too big.
- Other homes near yours are going for good prices and quickly at that.
- The value of your home has increased significantly since you moved in.
As you can see there are many good reasons to sell your home. If you have made the decision to do just that, you need to know what to do to get your home in order. There are many ways to sell a home, but by putting in some time to spruce it up and amp up the curb appeal, you’ll be doing yourself a big favor and really making it attractive to potential buyers.
So what do you need to do to make your home look it’s best? These tips can help make it a must-see place on the market and must-have for those looking to buy a home.
Increase Your Home’s Appeal
It’s often said that first impressions are everything, whether you’re talking about a person you meet or a car you buy or even what someone thinks of you. The same can be said of selling a home. When you’re selling your place, you need to show it off in the best possible light and really showcase its best features.
Increasing curb appeal doesn’t mean you have to grow crazy with home renovations, but there are a lot of simple things you can do to spruce it up. These simple things including mowing your grass, planting a few flowers, filling the cracks in your driveway, pulling weeds, and cleaning your gutters. Performing these simple tasks can go a long way as it shows prospective buyers that you care enough about the upkeep of your home.
But curb appeal also means showing off what’s great about your home. If you’ve got a new outdoor kitchen that’s part of an outdoor grilling area and pairs perfectly with a backyard pool, be sure to show that off. It might not appeal to everyone, but it’s sure to turn more than a few heads.
Doing simple maintenance also means you should pay attention to any needed repairs. One of the biggest things you’ll want to pay attention to is your home’s heating and cooling systems. That means getting your HVAC system serviced on a regular basis and most especially if you’re selling your home. In a perfect scenario of ways to sell a home, you’ll sell it in the spring or summer when the weather is nice, so having a working HVAC system can definitely be a major selling point.
Think Like A Buyer
There are many ways to sell a home, but one of the easiest ways you can sell your home fast is to think like a buyer. In other words, think about what you would want to see if you were buying a house and then make those adjustments accordingly to your current home. If you like a well-maintained yard, for example, take some time to do some basic landscaping. If you like seeing a fresh coat of paint on a home, throw up a fresh coat of paint on yours. Do you like clean gutters? Make sure to clean yours.
Get Creative
If you’re trying to sell your home, feel free to get creative. These days, you don’t necessarily have to follow old or outdated procedures to put your home on the market. With a little bit of ingenuity, you may find many creative ways to sell a home.
So what can you do? Consider these ideas:
- Post your home for sale on social media sites like Facebook.
- Put your home up for sale at a property auction.
- Showcase your home on Facebook or SnapChat by giving interested buyers a virtual tour.
- Ask your neighbors if they know of anyone who’s interested in buying a home.
- Offer incentives to prospective buyers—maybe by offering something you don’t really want to move.
- Let prospective buyers stay in your home for a weekend to test it out.
Enlist The Services Of A Realtor
Sure, any of the ideas mentioned above are fun, creative ways of selling a home. But sometimes you need to go old school and get the help of a realtor. Even if you think you can show your home yourself, you may not quite know what you’re doing and may be selling your home short. Some for-sale-by-owner home sales go very smoothly, but the last thing you want is to cost yourself money and time.
Plain and simple, realtors can go to bat for you and make the whole process of selling a home much easier. Realtors have knowledge and plenty of experience, so they can showcase your home and also negotiate with potential buyers to get you a fair price.
There are many ways of selling a home, but the actual selling of a home can often prove challenging. But realtors are experienced negotiators and can act as go-betweens when it comes to you and dealing with buyers. An agent has your best interests at heart and won’t shortchange you just to please a buyer.
Realtors can also help you hammer out all the finer details of a home sale, much better than perhaps even you can if you’re trying to sell your home on your own. Let’s say for example that you’ve done some extensive remodeling and want to factor that into your asking price. If you have no idea where to start, you may end up angering a buyer and potentially getting less than a fair price for your home. By enlisting the help of a realtor, contracts and any terms and conditions can be spelled out clear as crystal.
At the end of the day, a reputable lawyer can be an invaluable source of information and someone who will ensure that you’ll get your home off the market fast and at a price that you’re looking for.
Don’t Neglect The Inside Of Your Home
You definitely don’t want to neglect your home’s curb appeal if you’re trying to sell it, but you also can’t forget about the inside either. After all, you don’t want to spend loads of time sprucing up the outside of your home, only for a potential buyer to be disappointed when they see the inside.
Once again, the key is finding balance between completely overhauling your home’s interior and making enough changes and repairs to spruce things up. Some buyers may want to explore every single crawlspace and nook and cranny of your home, but doing a lot of little things can make a big impact.
What does that mean? It means if your window blinds are looking kind of ragged, purchase some inexpensive new blinds and hang them. Clean up closets, cupboards, countertops, tables, and whatever else is readily visible. Remember, the more viewers can see and be happy with, the better odds you have of selling your house quickly. Leaving your house cluttered when a buyer comes in might give them the impression that the house isn’t in the best of shape.
What else can you do? One area you definitely don’t want to neglect is the kitchen. The kitchen can be one of the top selling points of a home sale. There may be many ways to sell a home, but you can certainly show off your home in a great light if you’ve recently had a kitchen remodeling service redo your kitchen. After all, who doesn’t like brand-new kitchen appliances, sparkling new countertops, working cabinets, and more counter space?
Don’t forget the bathroom either. Much like the kitchen, well-maintained bathrooms can be a great selling point and a bathroom renovation—complete with a new toilet, new sinks, and new paint—may not be a bad investment, especially if you know you’re going to be selling your home in the near future.
Beware Of Obstacles
It’s true there are a great many ways to sell a home, but it isn’t always as easy as it looks. In some cases, sellers may feel a bit too nostalgic and get cold feet about selling their home.
If you find yourself feeling this way, it’s best to look toward the future. Yes, you may be selling a home where a lot of great memories have been made, but you’ll also be gaining a new home to make many great new memories in. It’s best to think of yourself as a seller since it will help you remain calm and objective during this whole process.
A big question you may have if you’re selling your home is, when is a good time to sell it? Spring and summer are undoubtedly the best times since that’s when prospective buyers are the most active. You want to get your home off the market during a different time of the year, but if your house may end up setting for awhile, if, let’s say, you try to sell it during the dead of winter.
If your home is posted as part of an online listing, it’s important to include photos. In today’s world where people post millions of photos online each day, you can never post too many photos. If you want to show off your brand-new lawn that was cut through the work of a residential lawn care service, go ahead. If you want to show off your backyard grilling area, include photos of that too. You may even want to include photos of areas that might need some patching up so that way, if you’re not able to make all the touch-ups you want to, a buyer knows what they’re getting into.
Stick To Your Decision
There’s no question that selling your home–or finding the best ways to sell a home— is one of the most important decisions you may ever make in life. To that end, you might consider taking your home off the market if you’re really not ready to go through with the idea.
But let’s assume that you are ready to put your home on the market. You’ve cleaned cupboards and countertops, enlisted the help of a siding contractor to repair holes in the outside of your home, checked on the plumbing, and had your HVAC system serviced. You’ve eliminated clutter from the most highly trafficked area of your home and you’ve really done all you can to showcase all the things you’ve loved about living in that home as long as you have.
Once you’ve made the decision to sell your home, you need to get it on the market. That’s where a realtor can become one of your biggest assets. With the right agent, you can showcase your home with crisp, clear photos, 3-D tours, arrange open houses, negotiate with any and all potential buyers and answer any lingering questions that potential buyers may have.
There’s no doubt that selling your home can be an emotional experience, but it doesn’t have to be so difficult. With so many different ways to sell a home these days, you can take a straightforward path or go a more creative route to get your home on the market and then off the market quickly.