3 Easy Steps to Follow When Selling Your Home

What a time to sell a house! The real estate market is red-hot throughout the United States, and real estate agents are begging for inventory. If you’re thinking of selling your home, it’s easy to become swept away by the frenzy. It seems all you’d need to do to sell your home at a profit is stick a “For Sale” sign on the lawn, sit back, and watch the offers roll in. But it’s not so simple.

In order to maximize your profits, even in such an unusual market, it’s important to lay some groundwork. Here are three easy steps to follow when selling your home.

Is This House Somewhere I’d Want to Live?

If one of the reasons you’re moving is simply that you’re fed up with a fixer-upper, wait a moment before just chucking that property on the local listings. Are there any easy fixes you can DIY to make the home more attractive to potential buyers? Putting in a bit of sweat for just a few hours can translate to thousands of dollars when it comes to fielding offers. So, if you don’t mind dedicating a weekend to staining your nasty deck, your home won’t just look more inviting–you can command an even better price.

Consider asking a friend or acquaintance to walk through your home and view it as someone who has never been there before. Is it a house in which your helper would want to live? If not, how can you make it more inviting?

Mynd Mortgage is for investors and provides a full range of financing options for every investor interested in single-family rental properties.

Certain low-cost time investments can go a long way. Here are some simple tasks that might make incredible differences to potential buyers: 

■ Patching nail holes

■ Replacing old or broken fixtures

■ Re-sealing gross garage or basement floors

■ Tidying landscaping and removing dead trees

■ Whitening grout

■ Painting walls a neutral color

■ Keeping the lawn mowed

■ Shampooing or professionally cleaning the carpet

■ Clean! Clean! Clean!

Even if you’ve kept your home in good repair and it seems ready to go, there are usually at least one or two little jobs that are well worth the effort. 

Research Carefully

While you’re waiting for the new stain on the deck to dry, it’s a good time to do a bit of research about putting your house on the market. The better informed you are, the more prepared you will be to field legitimate offers.

It’s always wise to gather information from a variety of sources. Learn about listing – for example, you might have sought out a HomeLister review if you’re eager to take on increased responsibilities throughout the selling process. Request the references of professionals, and ask a lot of questions. 

Some aspects of home selling to research include:

■ The best time of year to go to market in your area

■ Comparable sale prices 

■ Average closing time for your market

■ Where you will live after you sell your home

This last item is perhaps the most important. The problem with selling a house in a soaring real estate market is… you’re selling a house in a soaring real estate market. Unless you’re an investor who does not live where you’re selling, it’s vital to consider where you will go after closing, especially if you don’t have a new property in mind.  

Finding another place, even a smaller one in a less expensive area, might become a challenge. When housing markets are this wild, even rentals can command eye-watering prices. So before you leave the nest, be sure you have a place to land.

Prepare Wisely for Closing

It’s also a good idea to talk to real estate professionals about the closing procedure and how you should prepare for it. Although you might walk away from your home with a tidy profit eventually, the process of selling a house isn’t necessarily cheap, and fees might vary from place to place.

For example, some states or localities could stipulate that the seller must pay for a termite inspection or finance closing costs. Know what your responsibilities are before you hit the sales sites. 

In addition, assess your financial situation and think about what kind of offers you should entertain. It’s easy to assume that you will accept the highest offer, but it’s not always that simple; for instance, sometimes it’s better to take a little less from a cash buyer than a slightly higher one from a buyer with a complicated financing situation. 

Decide what you’re willing to endure throughout the closing process, which could take weeks or even months. Are you financially stable enough to wait before that check arrives, especially if you’re paying rent for a new place and need to provide a hefty security deposit?

Conclusion

It’s an exciting time to place your home on the market. With some smart research and a bit of sprucing, you can make the most of it.

Similar Stories