If you pay any attention to the housing market news, you know that we are currently amidst one of the strongest sellers’ markets. It has slowed down a bit in recent weeks. It is difficult to determine if it is the usual summer slowdown or if the market has run out of steam. This article is about how to get your house ready to sell, regardless of the market demands. Seller’s or buyer’s market, you must present your home as best as possible to get the highest price.
The optimum lead time to start preparing your house to sell is three to six months, depending upon repairs and improvements that might be needed. The more time you allow yourself to prepare, the easier and more cost-effective it will be for you.
Where to start?
Most home sellers find it challenging to know where to start and what to do to fetch the best price to get their house ready to sell. Most home sellers wonder what they must fix or upgrade. They must answer three crucial questions––how much will it cost? How long will it take? How do I keep my overall costs to a minimum? Of course, finding and hiring the right contractors is also part of this process. Knowing how to price your home just right is also crucial, as it helps you establish your budget for this phase.
Start early and seek professional help!
You have the option to go it alone and try to figure it all out. The most efficient and cost-effective way to prepare your house to sell is to engage a listing broker earlier. A national referral service ranks Broker Nadir of BN Real Estate as a broker who sells a home faster than 88% of the brokers who work in the same area. We can accomplish this primarily because we get our home sellers to start preparing their homes several months before listing their homes. Can it be done in a shorter time? Yes, of course. But like all other rush jobs, it’ll cost more, and quality is likely to be compromised.
One key advantage of starting this process with the help of the listing broker is that you will be able to establish the dollar amount of your net proceeds from the sale of your house with reasonable accuracy. A seasoned listing broker is best able to help you with this crucial step. Equipped with this information, you can then establish a budget for the improvements and upgrades.
Concierge Services
To serve our home seller clients better, BN Real Estate offers a Concierge Service. This service is a hassle-free way to prepare your house to sell quickly and for a higher price. We handle all this for our clients through this service; painting, flooring, roofing, repairs, staging, and other remodeling needs.
We also assist our clients to source other contractors if they prefer to be more directly involved.
Start with a home inspection.
The first place to start is getting a home inspection. Homebuyers have a right to get their home inspected. They also have the right to walk away from the agreement if they don’t like any item on that inspection report. This phase places the sellers at a significant disadvantage. Sellers put in a great deal of effort and spend money to prepare their houses to sell. They go through the showings and offers process. Then they choose the best offer (more about it in a separate article). When the new buyers have a home inspector of their choice inspect and prepare a report, the seller’s listing has lost the advantages of being a new listing. It is the weakest position for the seller to have to negotiate the buyers’ demands for repairs or improvements or price reductions. It gets worst. If the negotiations fail and the house has to go back on the market, the sellers become obligated to modify the seller’s disclosure (Form 17 in Washington State) and list all of the material defects that the buyer’s home inspection report identified. It can become a bit of a mess and can cost a lot of money.
Home inspections cost about five hundred dollars. It will be money well spent. It will provide a list of items that you must fix. It will also give your listing broker a reliable tool to control the negotiations when the time comes to deal with the buyer’s inspection. Most buyers will accept the seller’s inspection report, and you, as a seller, can altogether avoid a potentially complex phase.
What to fix or upgrade
Start with the items that the home inspector identified. Then move on to looking at upgrades that will enhance the value of your house. In this category, first look at structural items, such as roofs, windows, chimneys, crawl spaces, attics, plumbing, electrical systems, etc. These items must be fully functional, secure, and clean.
You can then turn your attention to the kitchen, bathrooms, and flooring. These upgrades add direct value to your house. Then comes painting and other cosmetic items. Staging is the last item on the agenda. While staging can help sell certain homes, the cost of staging outweighs the benefits in most cases. I am entirely opposed to using digital staging.
If you have chosen the right listing broker, they ought to know how to help you get your house ready to sell.
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