Selling a home is often a tricky and stressful project, but when it's your first starter home, it can be overwhelming. Your lack of experience in how to sell a home is combined with a smaller home that can easily get lost in a market full of larger, fancier properties with savvy sellers. But you can do it successfully. Here are 3 inexpensive tips to get your starter house sold in a jiffy.
Understand the Right Price
Pricing your first home can be full of pitfalls. First, you should know that the assessed value, the appraised value and what you paid for the home yourself may have no bearing on what the current market price is. Work with your real estate agent to look at "comps," which are the sales or listing prices of homes in the area that are similar to yours. Focus on what homes have been selling for, not what the owners are asking. Then shave about 10% to 15% off your price to make yours more attractive. Be prepared to lose a little money on the sale in order to accomplish your overall goal quickly.
Stage It Right
Your buyers need to be able to picture themselves in your home, which requires a little staging. "Staging" is real estate lingo for presenting your home in its best light for potential buyers. Stage your home by clearing out the clutter -- knick-knacks, family photos, extra books and any unpacked boxes. In a smaller home, remove some actual furniture -- perhaps one piece of furniture per room -- to make rooms appear larger. Clear the counter tops with a vengeance and remove about half the clothes and shoes from your closet. If you're going to keep these things, rent a storage space for the time being. But the goal is to get them out of the house so that the home will feel spacious and it will be easy for each potential buyer to picture their own stuff in the house.
Do Some Maintenance
No one likes to do repairs and maintenance. And so one quick way to detract from the charm of a smaller home is to show off how long your "to-do list" is with unfinished repairs or obvious maintenance issues. Trim the bushes and trees, clean up the yard, sand and paint any worn areas on the walls and replace or refresh any old carpeting. Go around the house -- inside and out -- and look for small projects that you've been putting off... and stop putting them off. You'll be able to attract more older or first-time buyers who are looking to move quickly if your home appears to need little or no work.
Following these 3 steps will help you get through the process of selling your starter home as quickly as possible and for a decent price. Your real estate agent may also be able to provide helpful advice, so be open to new ideas -- anything in the name of getting that house sold so you can move on to your next stage in life.
To learn more, contact a real estate agency like Felte Real Estate.
Share12 November 2015
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