11 Things You Should Do Before Selling Your Home

Don't know how to fix up your house to sell it? You can take steps before putting your house on the market to make it more likely that a buyer will make you a good offer. Here are 11 things you can do to get a house ready to sell, from cleaning and staging to repainting and removing personal items.

1. Find out about the local housing market.

First of all, you should learn as much as you can about how much your home is worth. Start by using Realtor.com to learn about the housing market in your area. Look at what other homes in your area have sold for to figure out how much you should ask for yours. Look at the square footage, features, and location of each comparable home and think about how they compare to yours. For example, if your neighbor's house sold for $1 million, but yours is a lot smaller, you'll probably need to list it for less. A good realtor should be able to help you find comparable homes and figure out how much to list your home for.

2. Look for a listing agent.

When it comes to real estate agents, we strongly suggest that you hire a professional to list your home. You should be able to find a real estate agent using Realtor.com and recommendations from people you know. Ask a listing agent about their experience in your neighborhood, how they know potential buyers, and how well they know how to use social media. The real estate agent should be able to give you a detailed plan for how they will sell your home.

3.More light bulbs!

You should buy a lot of light bulbs. When showing your house to potential buyers, you must turn on all the lights and lamps. Because of this, it's important that all of the light bulbs in your home work.

4.Give your home a thorough cleaning.

First thoughts are very important. So, don't let bad smells, dirty floors, or dusty surfaces give a potential buyer a bad impression. Deep clean your home before you list it for sale and while it's on the market. This means cleaning toilets, wiping down surfaces, mopping floors, cleaning rugs, and scrubbing bathrooms. Think about getting a Stanley Steamer and a housekeeper if you want to make sure that your place is in perfect shape.

5.Remove 'Stuff'

Getting rid of clutter and getting your space in order will go a long way toward attracting buyers. When a home is clean and free of junk, accessories, and overflowing closets, buyers can focus on the home itself.

6.Call a handyman

When fixing up a house to sell, you should have the number of your handyman on speed dial. Before putting a house on the market, make sure everything that needs to be fixed is fixed. This includes locks, hardware, leaky faucets, running toilets, cracks in the walls, broken appliances, squeaky doors, etc. If you don't, potential buyers may think that your home hasn't been well taken care of, which can turn many of them off. Here are some reasons why you should hire a handyman before and after moving.

7.Repaint

It's time to paint your house again. Start by painting neutral colors over those orange and green walls. Keep the walls white, light gray, light beige, or "greige." With these colors, your home will look bigger, brighter, and more inviting. Adding a fresh coat of paint to your home will also help hide any flaws in the walls and give potential buyers the impression of a clean slate.

8.Stage It

Several studies have shown that staging a home can help it sell faster and for more money. Staging the inside of your home can be easy and inexpensive. When you stage your home, don't forget to make the outside look nice as well. After all, when potential buyers come to see the house, the outside is the first thing they will see. So, make sure the grass is mowed, the yard is landscaped, and the gnomes and children's toys are gone. If your house looks a little worn down, you might also want to think about painting the outside walls. Here's everything you need to know about home staging.

9.Pay a professional to take pictures.

Since many people look for homes online, it's important that your online listing has high-quality, professional photos. Without good, high-resolution pictures, buyers may (unfortunately) pass over your home. So, hire a professional photographer to take pictures of your clean and staged home before you put it on the market. Keep in mind that a real estate agent should be able to help you find a photographer. When interviewing real estate agents for the job, be sure to ask who they use.

10.Rent a storage unit

When getting a house ready to sell, it's important to clean it up and get rid of things that you don't use or need. If you're willing to rent a temporary storage unit before selling your home, you'll have a safe place to keep all of your extra stuff while staging the house and showing it to potential buyers.

11.Make your home less about you.

When selling a home, you want to find the right balance between making it less personal and making it look warm and inviting. This means that most framed photos, bulletin boards, and personal items (like photo albums, magazines, toys, awards, etc.) should be put away. Leave out a few nice photos in frames to make the house feel more like a home.

Advice on how to sell your house quickly and well

Now that your house is ready to go on the market, here are some ways to sell it quickly and easily.

• Invest in good listing photos. First impressions are important, so make sure the photos you use to list your home show off its best features. Invest in a professional photographer who knows how to take pictures of real estate. Your real estate agent should be able to help you find a good photographer so you don't have to look for one yourself. Remember that you don't have to take pictures of every room and closet. Photos that show off the home's best features and selling points are a great way to get buyers to schedule a showing.
• Plan an open house. If you're willing, you and your realtor can host an open house to get the word out about the new listing. Open houses are a great way to get a lot of different buyers and buyer's agents interested in your home. If you get multiple bids or even just one great offer on your home in one day, you might not have to show it for weeks.
• Be flexible about showings. Showing a house to potential buyers is never easy. But if you want to sell your house quickly and for the most money, it's important to be flexible and helpful when qualified buyers come to see it. We suggest keeping your house as clean as possible and having a place, like a car, outdoor shed, or portable storage unit, where you can quickly throw away things when you need to.
• Effectively market your home. In today's housing market, your real estate agent needs to know a lot about marketing, like how to use social media, emails, mailers, and events to get people interested in your home. A good real estate agent should be able to use a variety of marketing methods to find people who might want to buy.
• Don't make too many changes to your home. It's important to make sure your house is in good shape before you list it, but you shouldn't make expensive additions or changes, especially if you want to sell the home quickly. It can take months to finish a renovation. For a quick and easy sale, make simple improvements like getting rid of clutter, painting, and fixing obvious problems like holes in the wall.

FAQs about putting your house on the market

Read on to learn the answers to the most common questions about selling your house.

What should you fix up before you sell your house?

What you do to your home before you sell it depends on how it looks now, if you need to make any repairs, and how much you want to list it for. For example, if you want to sell your house for a high price, you might have to make some improvements. On the other hand, if you want to sell a house as-is without making any changes, you may have to lower the price. We suggest that you ask your listing agent for advice on both the price and how to get your home ready to sell. To get your house ready to sell, you can also use the list above.

What things shouldn't you do before you sell your house?

Most real estate agents say that unless it's necessary, you shouldn't make expensive renovations or long, time-consuming changes to your home. You also don't want to list your home with the wrong real estate agent. Before choosing a realtor for the job, make sure to talk to more than one and think about what they have to say. If you choose the right realtor, your home sale will go well.

Don't forget to look at the local housing market to see how much your home is worth and how it compares to other homes in the area. You don't want to list your home for too much or too little. Most likely, the biggest mistake you can make when selling a home is to list it at the wrong price.

Lastly, when selling a home, it's important to get rid of clutter and clean. When showing a house, many sellers don't realize how important it is to have as little stuff as possible. Don't let your stuff or mess take buyers' attention away from the house itself.

How long does selling a house take?

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) says that it takes an average of 18 days from the time a home is put on the market until a contract is signed. Obviously, a home's time on the market depends on a number of things, such as its location. Realtor.com says that homes in the top 10 hottest zip codes of 2021 were sold within three to nine days of being put on the market.

When is the best time to sell a home?

In general, May is the best month to sell a house because homes tend to sell faster and for more money then. Obviously, the best time for you depends on a lot of things. Whether or not it's a good time to sell a house depends on where you live, what's going on in your life, and how the economy is doing in general. Make sure you're ready to sell your home and go through the process of showing it to strangers before you put it on the market.

How do I clean up my house so that it's ready to sell?

It goes without saying that you should clean a house before showing it to potential buyers. First impressions are important, and a dirty home may turn off many people. The best way to get your house ready to sell is to get rid of things you don't need. Get as much junk out of your house as you can, whether you throw it away, give it away, or store it. After you get rid of things you don't need, it should be easier to organize and clean your house. To put your best foot forward, you may also want to give your home a deep clean, or at least a light clean.

How do I make my house look nice enough to sell?

In addition to getting rid of clutter, putting things in order, and cleaning, it's important to stage your home with furniture and other items. Staging a home not only makes it look better, but it also helps buyers imagine themselves living there. The National Association of Realtors' "2021 Profile of Home Staging" says that 82 percent of buyers' agents said that staging a home helped buyers see it as their own. By setting up a house for sale, you make it more likely that it will sell quickly and for more money.

How do I decide on my price?

When selling a home, the most important thing you can do is set the right price. If you set the price too high, the house might not sell for a long time. If you price the home too low, you could lose money. A real estate agent with a lot of experience should be able to help you set a fair price. If you want to set the price and sell the house on your own, look at what other homes in your town and neighborhood have sold for. Pay attention to the square footage, location, features, and amenities of other homes when comparing yours to them. To set a fair price for your home, you'll need to look at a wide range of comps.

Prepared for what comes after you sell?

So, you fixed up your house, put it on the market, and sold it. Congrats! Start making plans for your move now. Check out our large list of movers to find a reliable and trustworthy moving company. We make it easy and free to compare quotes from hundreds of local and long-distance movers near you. All of the moving companies in our network are licensed and insured, so you can be sure that your move will be in good hands. Good luck and have fun moving!

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