Spring Market Is Here! Here’s 5 Tips To Sell Your Home This Spring
Curb appeal is powerful!
Buyers decide within 60 seconds of seeing a home whether they want to consider buying it. People know immediately something will fly, so you need to make sure you don’t turn them off before they get in the door. I recommend trimming trees and bushes so buyers can see the house, and pressure-washing the driveway, front walk, house and patio. I suggest cleaning and painting the front door because buyers must linger at the door while they wait for the agent to open the lockbox. Add colorful flowers to sell your home this spring and clean the windows so they sparkle inside and out..
Declutter & Simplify
Sellers need to go through all of their furniture and closets with a discerning eye to eliminate clutter and then go back again. If you have 17 sweaters, you may need to pare it down to two, so your closets look bigger. Pack up anything you want to keep, and put it off-site in a pod or a storage unit because you want your home to look like it always has plenty of space in all the closets.
If you have dark corners in the house, get rid of clutter in those areas, paint them a light color and reflect the color with lighting. If you have a pet, clean the carpets and open the windows to air out the house. Clean or get rid of your drapes if they carry a pet odor.
Do Pre-inspection Repairs NOW!
If you know a home inspector is going to find something wrong with your house, go ahead and fix it first. It will save you money in the long run. If you haven’t maintained your home, you may want to hire your own home inspector before your home goes on the market so that you can make appropriate repairs before you try to sell it.
It usually costs less to fix things before a home inspection, so bring in an electrician to make sure the electrical panel has been updated and, if needed, a plumber before a listing goes on the market. You can also hold onto your invoices so that you can show potential buyers all of the recent work thats been done.
Price It Right!…From The Start
Even though prices are rising in some areas, sellers need to be reasonable and compare their homes to similar properties that have recently sold. Although it has become a very fair market for sellers again, its still not a bonafied sellers market. Buyers will not overpay for a house. Buyers today are savvy shoppers. If you price too low, they’ll think something is wrong with your home. If you price it too high and have to lower your price, it will hurt you more than if you price it right the first time.
Overpriced homes that stay on the market for 90 to 120 days are extremely difficult to sell.The other danger of overpricing is that appraisers are cautious and may not value your home as high as the sales price even if you find a buyer willing to pay that much.
Hire A Marketing Magician
The majority of buyers start their home search online. To sell a home this spring, hire a Realtor who will make sure that professional photos, a virtual tour and a vibrant description are widely available on multiple websites. More buyers are using mobile phones and tablets to search for homes, so marketing materials should be easy to navigate from those devices, too.
I prepare marketing materials immediately, and then when the home is ready, I blast out the materials on 86 websites and advertise the open house online and in print. I encourage the sellers to market their home themselves, too, through an employee newsletter or their own social media.
