- 1. Motivate your reason for selling
- 2. Call real estate agents
- 3. Prepare your home
- 4. Make repairs before selling
- 5. Stage your home
Selling a house is not something that you can just jump into. It requires thoughtful planning and research, not to mention a lot of hard work.
The goal is for you to make as much money as you want along the way and to maximize your profits. In order to do this, you need to spend some time on the finer details.
So, before you start phoning the moving trucks and planning your show house, grab your notebook and take some tips on how to prepare for the selling of a house:
1. Motivate your reason for selling
The first thing that you have to do is you need to determine why it is that you want to sell.
You cannot reach a goal if you don’t know its purpose – this holds true for selling a home. You might find that you are, in fact, not ready to sell or commit.
You might realize that the market is not in a healthy state. Compare the pros and cons of staying where you are and leaving.
Having this written list, you should be able to determine the need to leave or change your mind and decide to stay.
2. Call real estate agents
Once you have decided and you are 110% sure that you want to sell, call in the professionals: the real estate agents.
The agent will be your partner in the process, so it is important that you find the real estate agent that you like. Please don’t just hire the first agent you run into! You can interview some of them and talk to a few neighborhood specialists in order to get a feel for them.
Ask each one of them to show you a comprehensive marketing plan and to compare a comparative marketing analysis, so that you have an idea of the values of homes in the area.
3. Prepare your home
As soon as you have decided on a real estate agent, you can then start prepping your home.
It would be a very good idea to ask your agent’s advice and to read up on articles that tell you how you should prepare your house.
Usually, the main rule would be to clear out any bulky, excess, and worn-out furniture. All the unnecessary extra stuff that clutters your house should be stored in the garage or in a storage unit.
Give the place a good spring cleaning or hire a professional team to do it for you.
4. Make repairs before selling
Obvious maintenance issues should be sorted out before listing the house. This can be anything from a broken doorbell to replacing broken tiles in the bathroom.
Why not try to enlist the help of a home inspector before selling so that you know which repairs need to get some (extra) attention?
It should be said, however, that not all repairs will pay off. The bathroom and kitchen usually show the best returns, but this is not always the case.
If you are consider remodeling something, rather ask the advice of your agent. Some things are just not worth “fixing” in the end.
5. Stage your home
Staging your home is an art, mainly because you are setting it up so that it appeals to the buyer and invites them inside.
Sure, you can hire a professional stager, but your real estate agent should be able to give you enough advice on how to accentuate the best parts of your home without breaking the bank.
Move furniture around and add a few accent pieces to create a well-rounded look. You can easily make a home look larger and more inviting.
And yes, make sure to hire a professional photographer to take pictures of your staged home, so that people get a positive (online) impression of your home.
