Preparing Your Home For Sale


Welcome homeowner! If you are looking to sell your home, in today`s saturated housing market, making a decision to work with a good REALTOR® is invariably a wise idea. An experienced REALTOR® can help you sell your home fast so that you can get on with your life. Our experienced real estate agents are ready to help you get your home ready for the market!

6 Essential Tips to Get Your Home Buyer Ready!

Once you`ve decided to work with a REALTOR® to sell your home, you can do a number of things on your end to get the home ready for sale. Getting ready to show to potential buyers or for an open house is easier if you no longer live in the home, although many people are still living in their homes when their homes sell. Either way, these tips will help you get the home buyer-ready:

  • Depersonalize the home. Pack away all of your personal photos and family 'stuff' that will be distracting to buyers. What you want the buyer to do when they walk through your home is to imagine their own belongings within the space; they can`t do that if you have tons of personal stuff lying around. You want the buyer to be able to envision themselves moving in.
  • Get rid of clutter. Rid the home of items that you don`t need. Pack away knickknacks, books, and other non-essential items, placing them in storage or in boxes in the garage. Clean out and organize closets and pantries. You`ll not only make the space look more inviting, you`ll already have a jump start on packing!
  • Minimize. If you`re staying in the home until it sells, you want to minimize the amount of furniture that you have in the home so that buyers can see the square footage of the home better. This also reduces visual clutter. Keep only the very bare essential furniture items, like a couch and chair, a bed for each person, and a dining table and chairs. Everything else should be stored away.
  • Make small repairs. Minor repairs now can make the home seem more welcoming and less of a headache for buyers. Besides, if your home maintenance is so poor that you can`t fix a leaky faucet or replace cracked counter tiles, the buyer is likely to think that there may be more serious problems lurking.
  • Clean, clean, clean! A house that sparkles is one that potential buyers will remember when reviewing their short list. Wash your windows, add new caulking to showers and sinks, wax the floor, replace worn rugs.basically give the whole house a once-over 'spring' cleaning until it shines. Don`t neglect the outside. Consider pressure washing the exterior.
  • Rev up curb appeal. The first impression buyers have of your home is its view from the curb, so make them want to live in the home from the moment they step out of their car. Trim the lawn, plant some flowers, paint the door a bright, welcoming color and hang a wreath. Stand on the curb and take your home in visually, looking for improvements that will make it stand out, like new house numbers or a new mail box.

These are just some of the tips that we recommends for preparing your home for sale. We can help you determine specific improvements and tasks that will make your home ready to sell faster!

Contact us now!

 

NAR report shows staging gets homes off the market!

The majority of buyer's agents say a staged listing helps their clients visualize life in the home
by MARIAN MCPHERSON
  • Staging a home "greatly reduces" the amount of time a home stays on a market, according to seller's agents.
  • Buyer's agents concur that home staging has an effect on their clients' decision and how much they're willing to spend.

Inventory is low, which means most listings are selling faster than ever. But there are still some outliers — homes that, for whatever reason, can’t attract a serious buyer. According to The National Association of Realtors (NAR), the tipping point may come from a splash of paint and some carefully placed furniture; these additions can make any house feel like the perfect home.

In NAR’s 2017 Profile of Home Staging, 39 percent of seller’s agents said staging a home “greatly” decreases the amount of time a home stays on the market, and 77 percent of buyer’s agents said a staged listing makes it easier for buyers “to visualize the property as their future home.”

“Realtors know how important it is for buyers to be able to picture themselves living in a home and, according to NAR’s most recent report, staging a home makes that process much easier for potential buyers,” said NAR President William E. Brown in a statement.

Only 38 percent of respondents stage all their listings, and 14 percent will turn to staging if the home isn’t garnering offers. Thirty-seven percent of seller’s agents only ask that clients make minor changes such as:

  • Decluttering (93 percent)
  • Entire home cleaning (89 percent)
  • Carpet cleaning (81 percent)
  • Remove pets during showings (80 percent)
  • Minor repairs (75 percent)
  • Depersonalize home (72 percent)

The most commonly staged spaces are the living room (83 percent), kitchen (76 percent), master bedroom (69 percent) and the dining room (66 percent). Twenty-nine percent of respondents said these changes increased the home’s final selling price by 1 to 5 percent, and 21 percent said the home’s final selling price increased by 6 to 10 percent.

Seller’s agents’ instincts on which rooms to prioritize for staging seem to be on point, as most buyer’s agents said the living room, master bedroom and kitchen were “very important” rooms for their buyers. The only time seller’s agents missed the mark was with dining rooms — most buyers said that room was only “somewhat important” when deciding on a home.

Ninety-eight percent of respondents who were buyer’s agents said home staging has some effect on their client’s decision to make an offer, and 31 percent said buyers are willing to spend 1 to 5 percent more on a home that was staged.

“While all real estate is local, and many factors play into what a home is worth and how much buyers are willing to pay for it, staging can be the extra step sellers take to help sell their home more quickly and for a higher dollar value,” Brown noted.

Read the full report here.

About the study

In March 2017, NAR invited a random sample of 53,760 active Realtor members to fill out an online survey. A total of 1,894 useable responses were received for an overall response rate of 3.5 percent. At the 95 percent confidence level the margin of error is plus-or-minus 2.25 percent.

Tips for Home Staging

Article: The Five Golden Rules of Home Staging

Author: Nick Caruso

When you show your home’s best features by staging it effectively, you help increase your final selling price without breaking the bank. In fact, on average, sellers receive $2 in increased sale price for every $1 they put into staging a home. As the infographic below shows, the following five golden rules of home staging will help you show off its best assets:

In-lined article from RISMedia: The Five Golden Rules of Homestaging

 This article was featured on RISMedia's Housecall, published on January 9, 2015.