When you decide it’s time to sell your house, you have to stop thinking of it as your home, and realize that your house is now a commodity on the open market. There is plenty of research – both scientific and anecdotal – that shows houses that are in “showing,” condition sell faster and for more money. We also know that homes that are priced right, sell faster and often for more money, and homes that are marketed aggressively are going to attract more qualified buyers. So when we begin talking about selling your house, we’re going to focus on three areas. Condition/Staging, Price and Marketing.
Setting the stage to sell
Getting your home ready to sell is an important process. And, this means more than running the vacuum and dusting.
Most homeowners have a little bit of work to do before they list their houses to sell. If you’re like most people, you’ve accumulated a bunch of stuff over the years. Maybe you’ve painted the walls colors that – while you love it – may not appeal to most buyers. Or maybe you never got around to painting those fuchsia-colored walls you’ve never liked.
One of the benefits Laura provides to home sellers is free home staging services. That means two things.
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Once the dirty work is done, a professional decorator will talk through the house and make recommendations for furniture placement, adding or taking away artwork or other decor, staging the fireplace mantel, and other recommendations all with the focus on getting you an offer faster and for the most amount of money possible.
On your initial meeting, Laura will walk through the house with you, looking into every room, every closet and probably the cabinets, too. She’s not being nosy, promise, but she wants to look at the house the way a buyer looks at the house. After this initial walk-through, she’ll provide some recommendations on things you should consider, which could include paint, decluttering, de-accessorizing (less is more), doing touch-up painting and maybe some updates, such as fixtures and faucets.
The price has to be right
You want to the most money possible for your house. Laura wants you to get the most money possible for your house. So, she’ll help you figure out what that price is. First, what that price isn’t. It’s not about how much you paid for it two years ago or 10 years ago. It’s not about how much you owe on the mortgage. It’s not about how much you need to make so you can retire to Key West and buy that bungalow you’ve always dreamed of. Market price is the amount of money a buyer is going to be willing to pay for your house. Plain and simple. The market price takes into consideration a couple of important factors:
Recent sales prices of similar homes in your community, the condition and location of your home.
Some Realtors want you to think this is rocket science, it’s not. It’s simple economics. And, here’s how we’re going to figure it out together:
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We’ll do a competitive analysis on similar homes that have sold in your area. Including features comparisons, whether recent sales were part of a relocation or distressed-such as a short sale or foreclosure and factor in whether the sellers agree to pay closing costs.
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We’ll look at the current competition on the market that will help to determine the suggested listing price of your house.
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We’ll look at the current market of the area, including the kind of inventory that’s out there.
All of this information together will help to build a strong case for how much the suggested listing price of your house will be.
