The Top Secrets And Fix-Ups To Make Homes Sell Fast and for Top Dollar Because your home is likely your largest asset, its important to sell it for the most money, as quickly as possible. As a professional Realtor, Ive learned a number of secrets to do that ... ways to spend the least on fix-ups and make the most money when your home sells. Here are the Top 10: 1. Make Your Home Look Big, Bright and Brand-New Clean If youve done a good job, your prospects are excited by the time they open your front door. The yard and outside of the home is beautiful. They cant wait to see how big, bright and beautiful it is on the inside. The look and feel of your home will generate a greater emotional response than any other factor. Even if your home isnt all that big or bright, you can make it seem bigger and brighter by following a few rules... Use bright light bulbs. Go through your home and replace every bulb with the brightest one allowed for the fixture. When showing your home, turn on ALL lights, open all drapes and open all blinds to allow the most light in. Fresh neutral color paint. Brighten your entire home with a fresh coat of paint throughout. Use white, off-white or beige on your walls. This brightens your home, makes rooms look bigger, and these colors will fit almost any furniture for your new buyer. Get rid of the clutter. Youve lived in your home for years and everything in it means something to you. But to a buyer, it looks cluttered and closed. Make your home more appealing by removing lots of furniture, especially outdated or worn furniture. Then, rearrange your furniture to make the rooms look as spacious as possible. Clean out your closets so they look bigger. By removing out-of-season clothes and spacing out the remaining, your closets look big, spacious, and able to meet your new buyers needs. Clean floors, carpets and draperies. Refinish or polish wood floors. Clean all your carpets, and if there are still dark tracks or stains, replace the carpet. The cost you spend replacing your carpet will help your home sell faster and often pay for itself in the sales price. Launder your draperies if they need it. Make everything look as brand new as possible! 2. Kitchens and Bathrooms Sell Houses - So Make Yours Beautiful! Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses -- make buyers love yours! Kitchen. Update your cabinets if they are outdated. If you cant replace them, repaint them. Update the fixtures to something more modern. Clear off all the counters and remove all small appliances and racks. Make the counters look as spacious as possible. Clean out your refrigerator, your pantry, and inside your cabinets. Remove anything you absolutely do not need so it looks big and spacious. Wax or polish the floor. Clean all your appliances and make them sparkle. Bathrooms. A grungy bathroom will kill the sale. Make sure everything in the bathroom is spotless. Consider hiring a professional cleaning company to give it a deep clean. Clean and repair all grout, caulk and tile. Clean and polish the toilet, sink and tub. Put out fresh, matching towels with matching colored, unused soap when your house is being shown. Upgrade Your Kitchen or Bathrooms? With the right expertise you can upgrade strategic areas in your home and make a huge impact on your sales price. This is where I can make a big difference. You can spend money on upgrading some things and get no increase. But you can invest money in other things and net as much as $10,000 more in the sales price. Overall, when done right, a strategic home upgrade can impact sales price as much as 2-5% 3. Fix Everything No one wants a run-down home they have to fix up, so fix it up for them! Grab your tools and fix everything youve been meaning to fix for years. Tighten screws on all doorknobs, cabinet handles, drawers, towel racks ... everything. Fix and glue down wallpaper, tack down any loose molding. Fix the light switch that doesnt work, or the tiny crack in the bathroom mirror. Fix leaky faucets and clean or paint over water stains on the floors or ceilings. Remember, youre not just competing with other resale homes, but brand new ones as well. 4. Odd Odors Kill Sales - Get Rid Of Them! Did you know odd smells, like traces of food, smoking or pets, can quickly kill deals? You may not even notice the odors in your home because you are used to them. But a prospective buyer walking in from the fresh outdoors will immediately pick up on them. So do everything you can to get rid of them. Open windows and doors to air out your home. Clean carpets and furniture where your pets spend time. Get rid of smoking odors. And finally, just before showing your home, bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Getting rid of odd odors, and having a friendly smell of fresh, chocolate chip cookies greeting your prospective buyers, add that perfect touch to a home showing! 5. A Beautiful Yard Sets A Great First Impression When buyers drive up to your home, the first thing they see is your yard. Make it look beautiful. Trim hedges and shrubs. Plant extra flowers for bursts of color. Put potted flowers beside your front door. Walk around your yard and remove any dead limbs and other debris. If you have areas for pine straw or mulch, make sure they are freshly covered and looking perfect. Do you have a fence? If so, walk along the fence and make sure its perfect -- paint or stain where needed, fix and repair broken places. 6. A Beautiful Home On the Outside Gets Buyers Desiring Your Home When prospective buyers walk up to your home, they notice the outside. Is your home in clean, mint condition ... or does it look well used? Check your sidewalk and driveway. Make sure its clean, and if there are cracks or holes, patch them. Replace faded house numbers on your mailbox or mailbox post with bright, shiny ones. While youre at it, repaint or replace your mailbox if it needs it. Walk up to your house. Does the exterior need repainting? Frequently, simply repainting window sashes, trim and shutters will freshen up the exterior without having to repaint the entire home. Also fix any broken windows or screens, wash and clean the screens to look sparkling new. Walk up to your front door. This is a main focal point for prospects. Is it faded or does it show signs of needing repair? If so, clean it, paint it, stain it, or repair it. Make it look brand new and beautiful. Make sure the entry light and the doorbell work and, if not, fix them. Its little things like this that matter. 7. Fix Problem Issues Before Your Buyer Gets An Inspection One of the most frequent things that knock the sales price down is a bad inspection. Any smart homebuyer will have your home inspected, and if the inspection has problems, they always use those problems to negotiate down the price ... and youll lose an average of 2-4% of your price when they do. How do you conquer this? Simple! Get your own home inspection. Find out what an inspector says are problems ... then fix them first before your home goes on the market. The few dollars youll spend in repairs far outweigh what youll keep by not negotiating down your price. 8. Help Buyers Visualize Themselves Living In Your Home with Expert Staging Staging is how you arrange the inside of your home so it shows in a way most appealing to buyers -- furniture layout, colors, paintings, etc. In addition, its arranging your home so prospective buyers feel comfortable viewing it. The last thing you want is for prospective buyers to feel they are intruding into someone elses life because of personal clutter and too many knick-knacks. When you stage your home (and Ill help you if desired), its everything from color selections (use neutral colors like white or beige), to placing the right furniture where it belongs to add warmth and character, and putting wrong furniture in storage. You can even enhance how attractive your home is with a well-placed vase of flowers or potpourri in the bathroom. Its all about making your home more desirable, and a well staged home usually gets 6-10% more in its sales price. 9. The More Prospects Who See Your Home Means The Faster It Will Sell and The More Money You Will Get This is definitely where I come in with my aggressive marketing of your home to prospective buyers. An important key to selling homes fast and for top dollar is getting multiple prospective buyers competing for it. The more people who see your home means more people likely to place an offer. When you have more than one prospective buyer placing an offer, each buyer competes with the others -- increasing the sales price and creating a sense of urgency to buy it now. When you have only a single buyer he will end up competing with you. 10. Shh! Keep the Reason Your Are Selling To Yourself If you want your home selling for top dollar, dont tell people why you are selling. If you do, theyll use it as ammunition to negotiate a lower sales price with you. For example, should they find out you have to move quickly, theyll use that knowledge to their advantage, driving the sales price down because of your urgency. When asked why you are selling, simply share your housing needs have changed, and leave it at that. Remember: why you are selling is your business, not theirs. BONUS #11. Faster Selling Homes Get MORE Money I just had to throw in a Number 11 key to selling homes for more money. Did you know those homes that sell fast sell for MORE MONEY than those that take longer to sell. Why? The longer your home stays on the market the more likely buyers are hesitant to make an offer because they fear something is wrong with the house, and the more likely they are to offer a lower amount than you are asking because they know you are likely more anxious to sell. Thats why its so important to prep your home to show its best, and aggressively market it right up front, so more people place offers faster. Give me a call to find out how to get a SOLD sign in your front yard!
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 14:50:41 +0000
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