Selling Your Home
Selling a house can be time-consuming and costly, but you can make the experience enjoyable if you know your market.
Price Your Home Competitively
When the market favors sellers, it’s tempting to inflate your home’s listing price to match perceived demand. However, you’re probably better off working with your real estate agent to set a fair price based on recent sales data of similar nearby homes. A strategic price tag will draw more interested buyers, who may naturally drive up the price by bidding against each other. Buyers who are searching for a home within a certain budget might not even see your home if the listing price is too high, potentially driving down competition.
Prepare Your House with Home Staging
Buyers may struggle to see themselves in your home simply because of the way that it’s styled. You can help buyers overcome this by hiring a professional home stager, working with your real estate agent to stage the home or taking it on independently as a DIY project. By cleaning, removing clutter and personal artifacts, and painting rooms in warm, neutral colors, you can show buyers that you’ve taken great care of your home and help them visualize what it would be like to live there.
Boost Your Curb Appeal
The yard and exterior of your home are the first things that potential buyers see in person, and enhancing its curb appeal grabs their attention. Cleaning and tidying your yard, repainting if necessary and upgrading outdoor fixtures can make your home more attractive to buyers.
Weigh Multiple Offers Carefully
If potential buyers start a bidding war over your house, it’s easy to get blinded by the dollar signs and choose the highest offer. However, neglecting to consider other factors can leave you open to complications. These are the kinds of questions you’ll have to consider to gauge whether a bidder’s high offer is really the best one on the table.
Has the buyer been preapproved for a mortgage?
Does the bid include contingencies that could make the deal more risky?
Is their bid so far over the home’s appraised value that a lender is unlikely to finance the sale?
Are they willing to move quickly to close?
Know Your Next Move
As soon as your home is under contract, it’s likely that you’ll find yourself on the other side of the transaction as a buyer. You’ll want to have a sense of the competitiveness of the market you’re moving into and know your next move if your house sells quickly.
For example, some sellers may move in with friends and family while they look for their next home. If that isn’t an option, you may consider something called a rent-back agreement, which involves the new homeowner allowing you to temporarily remain in the house until you can find a new home. You’ll also want to make sure that you have a realistic estimate of moving expenses, which you should budget for along with closing costs and other fees.