11 Tips To Sell Faster and For More Money
We know your ultimate goal is to sell your home for the most money in the least amount of time with the least amount of stress.
Here's a list of 11 ways you can sell your home faster, and for more money.
Choose A Strategy
Make Your Home Photo Ready
Remove Personal Items
Brighten The Space
Make The Most Of Your Space
Stage Your Home
Hire A Professional Photographer
Pump Up The Curb Appeal
Paint The Walls
Make Your Home Available
Price Your Home Correctly
choose a Strategy
Do you want to list it yourself?
Choosing to list at For Sale By Owner may be for you if you're confident in your own ability to understand the market, advertise, host an open house or showing, negotiate, and handle documentation. And don't forget about the time and energy you will need to spend for the best results, fastest sale, and highest possible sales price. Listen to Episode 18: For Sale By Owners (FSBO’s) for more information.
Do you want an agent?
Choosing to list with a Professional Real Estate Agent will hand over the responsibility of market analysis, advertising, open houses and showings, negotiating offers, and document signing, and more. We suggest choosing an agent that you trust and have confidence in and one who considers themselves a Full-Time Real Estate Agent because their full attention will be on serving your needs, monitoring the real estate market, and staying up to date on all other things real estate-related.
Take time to interview each agent you are considering and choose the one that best fits your needs.
Make Your Home Photo Ready
Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer. Would you be turned off by the condition of your house? Cleaning and tidying up your home is an easy way to improve how buyers value your home.
You may want to consider small professional improvements or easy DIY fixes as well. Simple updates to cabinets, hardware, mirrors, counters, and the like can make a huge difference in the final sales price. Consider that a buyer's mind will be calculating their own cost improvements in their heads as they walk through the home, so give them little reason to deduct value. Listen to Episode 32: Home Improvements and DIYs for inspiration.
Top spaces to tidy in the home include:
Cabinets and Shelves
Countertops
Dusty Corners
Tubs and Showers
Windows
Closets
Walls, Baseboards, and Doors
Print out our Fix, Freshen, Focus guide for the top recommendations for getting your home ready to sell.
Remove Personal Items
A clean space allows a buyer to see themselves in the home more clearly. Take time to safely pack away your personal family photos and memorabilia. You want the buyer to envision their new family living there, not yours. Make your home feel as neutral as possible to invite all potential buyers to dream of their life in your home. Remember, the home is the star of the show.
Brighten The Space
Nothing says welcome like a bright and open space. Welcome in the natural light and display one of your home's wonderful features: windows. Open your curtains, turn on lights when possible, or strategically place a lamp in a dark corner to brighten it up.
Make The Most Of Your Space
Along with considering places to tidy up and removing personal items, you may want to consider removing regular items altogether. Is your couch taking up most of the space? Think about how you can maximize the shape and flow of the room. Consider renting a storage unit while your home is on the market, or storing items in the garage (you can choose to keep the inside of the garage closed and unviewable to your potential buyers). Think "minimalist" and "essential". Scaling down the distractions adds to the vision the potential buyers can create for their own belongings.
Stage Your Home
Choosing to stage your home while it's listed on the market is completely optional. Did you already move out of your home? Or don't have the items to fill a room properly? A completely blank slate of a home may make a potential buyer struggle to see the possibilities in a space.
Your realtor or yourself can hire a staging company to bring the furniture in or instruct you to "work with what you got" and spruce up your space with a professional eye.
Listen to Episode 11: Ready, Set, Shoot! It’s Photo Day for more on staging your home to sell.
Hire A Professional Photographer
It's often said a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, a nice, professional picture is probably worth a bit more when it comes to the final offers on your home.
Many buyers are searching the internet and not the streets for the future home. Photos are going to be the first impression your home makes to draw a potential buyer in. A professional will know how to best show off your home's features—some buyers may make an offer without even needing to see it in person. A 3-D Tour of your home could also be something to consider.
Professional Real Estate Agents often cover the expense of hiring a professional photographer and are a part of the marketing efforts for your property. An estimated $500 in savings.
Pump Up The Curb Appeal
Ever driven by a show-stopping home and thought, "ooh that walkways and entryway are nice?". You wouldn't be the only one. The exterior of your home makes a lasting impression and draws in potential buyers.
A fresh coat of paint on the exterior walls, your front door, your address number, or a mailbox is an easy start. Are you into gardening? Take time to plant fresh greenery, place pots, tidy your flowers, trim the trees and bushes. Pressure wash the dirt and grime off your walls and walkways to brighten up the fresh nature of your home. Hiring someone to tend to your lawn and everything else we listed is also an investment to consider.
Paint The Interior Walls
Are the walls in your home quirky colors? Outdated wallpaper? Neutral colors and simple patterns are your friends. Busy colors and wallpaper may deter potential buyers. A soft neutral palette will create a fresh slate for the buyer to design their own space. When in doubt, go white.
Make Your Home Available
Now that your home is ready to show, it's time to make it available. Most potential buyers want to see a home on their own schedule—often meaning the weekends or evenings during the weekday. Sometimes, it could be within a few hours. And because you did all the hard work before hitting the market your home is ready to go at a moment's notice. Listen to Episode 13: What To Expect For Home Showings for insight on what it will be like.
Price Your Home Correctly
We know you want to get as much as possible for your beautiful home. But not everyone is going to value it as high as you do. The market is going to determine that to an extent. Setting an unrealistic price will deter potential buyers and possibly leave your home on the market sitting. Even price adjustments after your first price will look unappealing to potential buyers. A home on the market for a long time plus price adjustments could mean something is wrong with the home. A Professional Real Estate Agent will be able to run a Comparative Analysis and advise you on what price you should list your home at.
If you’d like to listen to more tips in detail on how to sell faster and for more money tune in to Episode 8: Top 10 Things To Do To Sell Your Home For More Money.
