The first home my husband and I lived in sold two weeks
after we put it on the market. We had an offer on our second home before we
even put a "For Sale" sign in the yard. That was not during the boom
days of the housing market -- it was in September 2012.
The median time homes nationwide spent on the market in
January 2013 was 71 days, according to the National Association of Realtors.
That's 28 days less than a year earlier, but it's still months longer than both
of my homes were on the market. And I know people -- and I'm sure you do, too
-- who've had homes on the market for a year or more. So how did my homes sell
so quickly? Here are five things my husband and I did before putting our house
on the market in 2012 to ensure a fast sale.
Focus on
curb appeal. Admit it: First impressions matter. So a house
with chipping paint, overgrown bushes and patchy grass won't make a good
impression. So we painted the exterior of our house (because some paint was chipping). We weeded,
trimmed bushes, added new mulch and put new flowers in the planters in the
front of the house. We actually had sod installed in the spring of 2012, so the
grass looked good when we decided to sell in the fall. Yes, you might have to spend
some money to make the exterior of your house more appealing, but it's
money well spent if it gets potential buyers in the door. Plus, if your house
is in good shape on the outside, buyers will see it as one less thing they have
to spend money on once they move in.
Make all
necessary repairs. Even minor things, such as a leaky faucet or
chipped paint on a baseboard, can suggest to buyers that you might not be
maintaining the house well in other ways, too. So we tackled several small
projects that, admittedly, we had been putting off. Luckily, my husband is
handy, so we didn't have to hire anyone to make these small repairs. And we had
already undertaken two bigger repair projects several months prior to deciding
to sell our house. In the spring of 2012, we hired someone to rebuild the
portion of the fence in our backyard that was dilapidated and a major eyesore.
Around that time, we also hired an electrician to check all the wiring in our
100-year-old home, fix any problems, replace several light fixtures and add
outlets to several rooms.
Stage the
house. Staging involves deeply cleaning, decluttering,
depersonalizing and arranging furnishings to make your house as appealing as
possible. According to a survey by the International Association of Home
Staging Professionals and StagedHomes.com, 95% of staged homes sell in 23 days
or less, on average. So we painted the walls in a stairway that were scuffed
and the ceiling of our kitchen and sunroom because they had some stains. I
packed up most of my family photos that were on shelves, tables and walls. We
already had a storage unit, so we were able to clean out closets and
put items we weren't regularly using into it. And we turned a kid's craft room
(which was cluttered with art supplies, toys and a homemade craft table covered
in paint and glitter glue) into a sitting room. My goal was to make my home
look like it was ready for a photo shoot for a magazine or catalog.
Our 7 Things Home Buyers Hate slide
show will help you pinpoint fixes you might need to make in your home. Also see
the home improvement checklist at
HomeGain.com. If you lack Martha Stewart's touch to stage your home yourself,
you can enlist the help of a professional stager. The bill could run anywhere
from a few hundred dollars up to several thousand. StagedHomes.com has a directory of accredited staging
professionals.
Set the
price right. We had our house appraised before selling it,
so we knew its market value. We set our price slightly above the appraisal
value -- but below the prices of comparable homes nearby that were for sale.
And we were selling our house by owner, so we didn't have to factor a real
estate agent's commission into the price. Our goal was to sell quickly -- not
make a big profit -- because we had an offer on another house and it was
contingent on the sale of our home.
It's important to know what your competition looks like
when you're selling a home and setting a price. If most of the homes that are
comparable in size, age and location to yours have hardwood floors and granite
countertops and yours has carpet and formica, you'll need to set your price
lower (or make updates to fetch a higher price). If the reverse is true, you
might be able to set your price a little higher and point out to potential
buyers that your house has more features than comparable properties. Most
importantly, though, you need to be willing to negotiate.
Spread
the word. This was the key to selling our second house before
we even put up a "For Sale" sign. I posted on Facebook that we would
be putting our house on the market soon. I told other parents as I waited
outside my kids' school that we were selling our house. I even mentioned in a
Parent-Teacher Organization meeting that I needed to sell my house because the
offer I'd made on another house had been accepted. A day after that meeting, I
got a call from the mother-in-law of one of the other PTO board members. We
showed her the house three days later, on a Friday, and got an offer -- right
at the appraisal value -- on Sunday.
Even if you hire a real estate agent, you should let as
many people as possible know that your house is for sale. Someone who isn't
even in the market for a new house (and not checking real estate listings) may
have secretly been longing for your home and might jump at the chance to buy
it.
CLICK HERE to view the this article on the Kiplinger website.
CLICK HERE to see how John Petel can help you buy or sell!
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