One of the best feelings in life is buying or selling your home, especially in the hopes that the process goes smoothly and everyone ends up happy. While selling your house can be a bit intimidating, emotional, and sometimes expensive, it can also be extremely rewarding knowing that someone else is going to love and cherish your home as you once did.
A few years ago, we needed to get a space better suited for our family’s needs, and we wanted to put a big down payment on the next home, which meant we needed to get a great price on our townhouse. Although there were a lot of elements involved with selling our house, we knew that the effort we put in now, it would result in a great outcome later on.
Another huge aspect of selling your home is making sure it’s staged for potential buyers, while also making sure it sells to people who will care for it. Even if your budget is tight, here are four key ways you can prepare yourself and your house to get the best deal on your sale.
Know your numbers
Before you approach a lender, sit down and run the numbers. Why? Because you need to have a clear of idea of what you need out of this house sale. It might even be helpful to sit down and list out what you’re looking for in your new house, and how much each feature would cost. This way, you’re well prepared prior to your lender meeting and you’ll know if your budget has any wiggle room.
Hunt for the right partners
Don’t sign with the first real estate agent you hear about, or jump into selling your house yourself without doing some research. For us, it took a few weeks to get the right one, but it was well worth it. When we were selling our townhouse we hunted around and found that a local credit union offered an incredible deal that offered us more options, including staging consultation for free.
It could also be helpful to ask around your friend group or relatives for realtor suggestions or who to potentially steer clear of. Also, it’s more than okay to speak with a few real estate agents to gauge how well-suited they’d be to help sell your house. After all, this is a huge part of your life, and you want to make sure that all your ducks are in a row.
Think like a buyer and prepare accordingly
Make peace that this place will soon be someone else’s home and start making the transition now. If you haven’t already, start packing up, donating, or selling clutter or just-in-case items around the house. Having a yard sale can also give you some extra cash you can use for your sale or decorate your new home!
Make your house comfortably inviting – for the buyer
All those little touches that make a house a home are great – for your next place. You don’t need to hire a professional staging company, but their core advice is extremely useful and will get you more for your house.
What does that really mean? Go with neutral paint colors for all the rooms. All those personal pictures and unique decorations? Store them for the move. Also, the less clutter, the better! You likely won’t need to go buy all new furniture or decorations to stage your house, but it should be clean and open for a welcoming feeling that will make people want to stay. For inspiration, take a peek at magazines or on an interior decorator site.
Thoughts on Selling Your House
Selling a house, especially for the first time, can be stressful, but you can have a wonderful experience if you spend plenty of time thinking through the steps you’ll need to take to sell! I hope these tips help smooth out the process and allow you to keep more money in your pocket. How many of you are selling your
How many of you are selling your home? For those who have done it, what was the biggest help for you?