An Informative Guide to Selling Your Home

There's nothing quite like moving into a new house. It gives you a chance to start fresh with a clean slate. In most cases, it leads to meeting new people and developing new friendships. 

However, if you're like most homeowners, you'll need to sell your current home before being able to purchase your next one. If you're excited to move on with your life, this process can feel incredibly tedious and time-consuming. 

But selling your home doesn't have to be a big deal. It doesn't have to be stressful or confusing. 

By taking the proper steps, you should be able to sell your house in no time. We're here to walk you through the selling process. Keep reading for a quick guide on how to sell your home. 

Work With a Real Estate Expert

First, we highly recommend working with an experienced real estate agent from the community. A REALTOR® has valuable experience in the industry and in-depth knowledge pertaining to the local real estate market. As such, they can provide you with quality advice to help you list, market, and negotiation the sale of your home. 

Just as importantly, real estate agents have important connections that benefit home sellers. Primarily, they work hand in hand with other agents who have buyers looking for homes like yours. 

Finally, while you might consider saving some money by choosing not to hire a REALTOR®, the decision could end up haunting you. Homes sold by REALTOR®s generally sell faster and for more money. Not to mention, if you don't have a REALTOR®, you are the one handling walkthroughs, open houses, negotiations with buyers, listing the home, and more. 

Understand the Condition of Your Home

Before selling your home, you need to know what condition it's in. This is the only way to accurately and fairly determine your asking price. 

We recommend scheduling a home inspection. An inspector will come to your home and assess its condition. Most buyers (and their lenders) will demand this part of the home selling process anyway. 

By completing the home inspection preemptively, you can save a lot of time and frustration. After all, you wouldn't want to be surprised by something major while you have an offer on the table. This can set back the process or scare away the buyer entirely. 

Determine Your Home's Value

Once you get the inspection results back, you can accurately evaluate your home's real market value. To do this, conduct a comparative market analysis. Look at homes in your neighborhood that have sold in the last few months and compare them to your home. 

Here are the major areas to consider while comparing and contrasting your home to others:

• Lot size
• Home square footage and footprint
• Age
• Condition
• Recent updates and renovations
• Outdoor living space
• Bonus features (garage, shop, pool, fence, etc.)
• Number of rooms
• Number of bathrooms
• Etc.

If you're not sure how to get started, we can help. Click here to get a free market analysis of your home. You can also pay to have your home officially appraised by the bank.

Decide If You Want to Make Repairs and Renovations

Once you've identified the fair market value of your home, you have several options before moving forward with the selling process. You can:

• Leave the house as-is
• Make minor repairs and aesthetic upgrades
• Correct every issue on the inspection report

The average home seller spends close to $21,000 prepping their home for the market. However, you don't have to spend that much money if you can't afford it or don't want to invest the time and effort in completing renovations. 

Just understand how the condition of your home affects the price. Additionally, major issues with your roof, foundation, drainage, and other damages can prevent a buyer from being able to purchase your home. Some lenders have strict conditions under which they will provide funding. 

Deep Clean the Home

Once you've completed renovations and repairs, you can take the next steps to sell your house. Now, it's time to thoroughly clean the home from top to bottom. 

This is vital when selling your home traditionally. Potential buyers will be turned off if your home is disorganized, smelly, cluttered, dirty, or otherwise unpresentable.

They expect your home to be move-in ready. If they walk into your house and see a bunch of cleaning tasks they would need to perform, it will limit their enthusiasm and even prevent a sale. 

You can learn how to deep clean your home and do it yourself, or hire a residential cleaning company to do it for you. 

Boost Your Curb Appeal 

Learning how to sell your home requires learning how to attract buyers. Of course, this includes marketing, but we will go over that later. Right now, we're talking about your curb appeal. 

Like any good book or movie, you must learn how to draw people in with the cover. The external appearance of your home and property will have a major impact on the type of buyers you attract. 

The outside of your house must be clean, welcoming, and visually appealing. However, this doesn't mean you have to spend a ton of time and money professionally landscaping your yard. Here are some basic things any homeowner can do to boost their curb appeal:

• Refresh the exterior paint
• Keep the lawn mowed and watered
• Get rid of weeds and keep vegetation trimmed
• Keep the yard clear of trash, debris, and clutter
• Keep sidewalks, driveways, and other walkways clean

Once you complete all of these steps, selling your home will be much easier. Prospective buyers will be more motivated to look inside the home, which brings them one step closer to making an offer.  

Consider Having the Home Professionally Staged

Did you know that staged homes typically sell 73% faster than nonstaged homes? Staging a house shows buyers the true potential of the home. While moving out of the house and leaving it empty will make it look bigger and cleaner, it can also leave things feeling bare and cold.

A staged home, on the other hand, shows buyers the best way to organize the home, furnish the home, and create a good flow throughout the house. 

Staged homes feel more welcoming and warm. Therefore, if you want to sell your house fast, hire a professional home stager. You can also stage the home yourself but will be limited based on the furniture you already possess.

List Your Home on the Market

Now, let's talk about listing your home. If you took our advice about hiring a real estate agent, they can do most of the heavy-lifting here. They also have access to multiple home listing sites you would otherwise have to pay for (if you could gain access at all). 

However, there are more steps you can take to expedite the home selling process. We recommend marketing your home on social media. You can create a post to present your listing and ask your current friends and followers to share it. 

You can also join a buy/sell/trade group on Facebook. These community pages are excellent for generating more visibility for home listings. Just make sure you read the rules of the group page, as some of them don't allow home listings.

Get Ready for Walkthroughs and Open Houses

After listing your home, the next step is to show the house to interested buyers. If you've hired a real estate agent, you can have as much or as little to do with this process as you'd like. If you're still living in the house, make sure you're continuously cleaning up after yourself, as you never know when someone will want a tour. 

We also recommend showing your home to buyers en masse via open houses. Your real estate agent can help you organize this event. Once again, you don't even need to be there during this selling process if you don't want to be. 

Learn How to Negotiate

Finally, learning how to sell your home for a good price requires learning a little more about the negotiation process. When selling your home, you likely want to get as much money as possible for it. Conversely, buyers will want to get it for as little money as possible. 

The key is finding a compromise somewhere in the middle where both parties can walk away happy.  As noted earlier, real estate agents are well-trained in the art of negotiation. They can help guide you in the process so you get what you want, but don't lose out on a sale by being too stubborn. 

Lastly, remember that the price of your home is not the only thing you can haggle over. For example, you can also negotiate over:

• Who pays the REALTOR® fees
• Who pays closing costs
• What repairs and renovations are completed 
• What furniture and appliances are left behind
• And more

The price tag on your home is not the only thing of value. You could save thousands of dollars if the buyer agrees to pay for REALTOR® costs and closing fees. Conversely, you can raise your asking price if you agree to complete certain renovations. 

Planning on Selling Your Home?

Clearly, selling your home is quite the process. However, it doesn't have to be stressful or overly time-consuming. Follow our guide to sell your house quickly and for a fair price. 

And if you want hands-on assistance, contact us today to get in touch with one of our experienced real estate agents. We would love to help you sell your home!