Achieving top dollars seems easier said than done when selling your property. However, this will require extra preparation and research.
In the old days, putting a plain and ordinary photo of your house in a local newspaper was enough to close a deal. But today’s tech savvy potential buyers are far critical and perceptive that it’s essential not to cut corners and rattle through when putting your property up for sale.
The key is in the preparation and this covers everything from finding the perfect real estate agent for your home to ensuring that your front door opens properly, or your lights are working.
But how do you exactly prepare your home for sale?
We have made this checklist to assist home sellers and ensure that their property is sold quickly and, more significantly, at the best possible price.
Local Market: Need to Study All About It!
It’s most likely that you’ve already done some research on your own and checked local and recent sales results. That is a remarkable way of sizing up and feeling the market. However, it is best to communicate with your real estate agent to get more details.
Do not compare apples and bananas. There’s no point in assessing a two-bedroom home, single level on a major thoroughfare versus the huge-money sale for a three-storey house with a basketball court and a swimming pool that could give you unlikely expectations. Instead, you need to understand how the home you have will likely draw people in. Make sure to study the demographics of the local buyers and make the house more interesting to them.
Check and understand the market trends, such as auction clearance rates and price growth. These things will perhaps show you the market’s direction and the ideal sale strategy that could work well for your property.
In addition, watch out for macroeconomic factors affecting Australia, like fluctuations in interest rates or immigration policy changes. They might affect the market, though the effect could be delayed, it is still worth noting.
Set an objective and request for appraisals
Once you have done your market research, you can then proceed to check the agents out in your location. A good starting point is looking online or asking around your neighbourhood. But, of course, it is best to meet the agents face-to-face. In this way, you will know if they’re the right fit for you and your property.
Choose the agents who are reputable, skilled, qualified, and highly regarded by locals. Try to get an appraisal from them if you can. This will help you guarantee that your anticipated price point for your home is attainable for the agent that you will choose.
It would also help if you don’t focus on the agent who commits to the best price or the one who gets the lowest commission. Instead, find the right agent expert who is serious about going through all the steps of the whole selling process with you. For example, if you’re selling an apartment, look for an experienced agent in this niche. Or, if you are listing a farm or agricultural land, go for someone knowledgeable on this market.
After obtaining several appraisals, establish a realistic and achievable goal price. The price should be based on the agents’ estimates and can be confirmed versus comparable properties being sold in your area.
You may want to check an agent as he is in action and performing the selling act. This is a good strategy in shortlisting your agents, too. If you like how he conducts himself in action, follow through immediately with a short introduction and ask for their contact details. You should feel very comfortable with the agent. After all, you are selling your home, which is considered your most valuable asset.
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How to Achieve your Goal with your Agent?
Plan and work thoroughly with your agent to ensure you go for a SMART goal.
For a goal to be SMART, it should be by all means be:
S-pecific
M-easurable
A-ttainable
R-ealistic
T-ime-bound.
One illustration of a SMART property goal is selling your property for over $1,500,000 in eight weeks. This goal is excellent —considering this as a reasonable price compared to previous sales within the area. Ensure the agent is on top of this goal, and then you can both work on realizing it even before the deadline.
How to Prepare your Home for Sale
This is the step when the fun kicks off, though expect yourself to be exerting some work and encountering some challenges down the road. Always keep in mind your end goal – To make ONE fall in love with your property (“your home”), just like how you did when you first laid your eyes on it.
Where do you start preparing your home for sale?
These are the KEY priority areas to focus on when you are all set to sell your home for the best price.
1. Attend to the necessary repairs
Cracked windows, chipped tiles, stained carpets, or scraped paintwork are apparent signs of wear and tear. This usually turns people off, and you don’t want that to happen. The “not-so-good” visible signs are instant “red flags,” which can lessen the buyers’ interest in your property. Worst, they may ask for a lower price than they’re ready to pay due to work required based on what they saw.
Talk to your agent about areas needing repair and refurbishment before scheduling your home for viewing. You must ensure that you are doing it to improve and increase attractiveness and charm without resorting to overcapitalisation.
2. De-clutter your home and make it tidy and fresh
Examine other houses put on the market, and expectedly, you will note that they’ve been tidied up, cleaned well, and de-cluttered thoroughly. Some homes may have even been beautifully styled to look more pristine and contemporary.
It is vital to remove all your clutter as it allows the prospective buyer to see the rooms correctly and, more than that, makes the rooms appear more significant in size, and thus, more spacious.
Clean the house well, even in unseen areas such as under the sink or behind the doors and stairs. It makes the house look well-maintained. This condition gives the buyer a subconscious impression that the home is in a good state — cared for well and has no concealed issues.
3. Change the style of your homeit tidy and fresh
Good styling is an option where an instant upgrade or facelift may give your property that ‘new and updated’ look appealing to buyers. You may hire a decorator or stylist to do this job for you, or perhaps rent off some furniture and accessories and do the styling yourself.
How to fix up a home before putting it on the market?
Every seller’s goal is to achieve the maximum sale price for their home or property. However, it could be that a simple fixing up of a few concerns or a quick renovation can make a big difference.
If you are handy enough and have good DIY skills, you can save a lot by doing the small jobs yourself. But you can also hire a local handyperson to assist you or a builder if a big renovation is required to lessen the burden and speed up the process.
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But first, spend some time checking and assessing the current condition of your home. Walk through the house entirely with a notebook and write down a list of all the areas needing improvements.
The following are the areas/parts of the house that you should inspect:
1. Re-style the home to give it a “fresh” look.
Do you know what could distinguish between a fast sale and long months of waiting in anticipation with no action from prospects? Sometimes, re-styling or styling it, if you still hadn’t done it, can make a big difference. A clean, nicely styled, and tidied-up home is more likely to attract potential buyers. Clutter and eyesore are semantically related. It is always best to discard all clutter at home and put the unused stuff like kids’ toys, old books, or kitchen equipment in the storage room until you move.
2. Review and fix the price.“fresh” look.
Reducing the price isn’t necessarily the solution, but neither is being against it. If, after plenty of discussions with your real estate agent and valuations based from other operators (at least two), your price doesn’t seem right – then it’s time to go back to your drawing board. Review and master the art of pricing so your home can sell quickly. If you have a fixed price, this will not sell your property, but turning it into a negotiable price within a reasonable range will.
3. Place it off the market after a while.
It may seem counterintuitive, but de-listing for a few months may help. If your house or unit has been displayed for months and is not being sold, buyers may assume that something is off with it. It takes a while, at least a few months, for people to see a property they like. So, taking your property off the market, refreshing the interiors, or maybe a re-assessment of the asking price implies you will come back on the market with an entirely new look – that would mean a fresh batch of prospective buyers, too.
4. Check with another agent.
As in any relationship, the connection between your real estate agent and yourself is important as it can affect the outcome of your property sale. If you think it’s not working out, consider checking out a new agent and restart your campaign.
5. Renting out can be an option in the meantime.agent.
After you’ve made improvements in a single room or more, made price adjustments, and discussed with your agent, you may want to consider renting out your property in the meantime. You may not recoup as much as your loan, but at the very least, you’ll get to move forward. While this option may not be for everyone, renting out the property can be better than having an empty house sitting on the market, using up your funds.
Some final thoughts:
Are you now ready to sell your house at the best price?
To hit it off successfully, keep in mind all these tips we’ve shared with you.
Things will go well from start to end when you have a financial goal in place.
For a quick sale, a lot of thought and effort on your part will be well worth it!
