5 Home Prep Tips For A Quick And Profitable Sale

Real estate property isn’t like your other properties, which you can sell within a few days from the time your listing goes live. Even cars can be sold in a couple of days if you find the right buyers for the price you want. However, real estate properties take time to sell.

Of course, there are the physical factors involved in the longer process: The sellers need to prep their homes and do their best to make them look good for when the buyer comes to visit and take a look around. There’s also the due diligence part of the process since the buyer needs to check the seller’s paperwork and have the property appraised by a professional for an accurate valuation.

However, some sellers need to sell their homes fast. Does this describe your situation? Do you have a real estate property and you’re thinking of putting it up for sale? Here are a few home prep tips if you’re hoping to sell your home quickly for a handsome profit.

1. Find Out Your Home’s Best Price

If you want to make a considerable sum out of selling your home but you need to do it quickly. The first thing you have to do is to find out the best reasonable asking price for your home based on its expected market valuation. Getting the most accurate price will help you make the most of your profit margin while keeping your home appealing enough to buyers.

Keep in mind that a large number of buyers hunting for a new home are also homeowners themselves who have their current homes listed. They’ll also be using the money from their home sale to buy your house if they take a liking to it. Given their circumstances, most of them would have an intuitive idea of how much a home should be priced. The only possible exceptions to this are the millions of renters who want to become first-time homeowners. As well as the millennial generation who are coming of age and are scouting around for their first homes.

Even if they can’t figure out right away the ballpark figure for your home listing. The buyers would be getting real property appraisal services anyway. So, there’s no use pitching a price that’s too high above the expected valuation from professional appraisers. Moreover, you should factor in the property and transfer tax that you’ll have to pay to know how much you’re going to clear.

You don’t want your home listing to be priced too high because you might not get serious offers from qualified buyers within a short period from the time your listing goes live. Remember that the best time to attract qualified buyers is the first two to three weeks from the time your listing goes up. The longer it stays up online without any offers. The more it loses its appeal as a fresh and new listing. Of course, you don’t want to sell too low either. Thus, you need to find the right price.

2. Perform Quick Reworks And Upgrades

If you still have the time, try to take care of minor but quick reworks and upgrades that could still pump up the final price of your home before you go live with your listing.

Here are some examples of minor works that you could still do a few months or weeks before listing:

• Curb Appeal –

  In a very recent survey conducted among real estate agents. A majority of them reported that the curb appeal of a home’s façade is often crucial to the sale. Some buyers have said that the home’s front appearance gives them their first feel and impression of the property from the moment they drive up to the home’s front. And these impressions often evoke either positive or negative emotions and thoughts, which can affect the negotiations and sale process.

• Kitchen Repairs –

  You can still rework your kitchen even if you’re hoping to sell your home soon. Simple replacement of the kitchen sink and faucets with more contemporary designs will give your kitchen a new and fresh look. For some buyers, this could close the deal for a few thousand dollars more than if you had a dingy and gloomy kitchen.

• Garage And Front Doors –

  Experienced real estate agents say that replacing your garage and front doors with more solid and sturdy ones gives your home an aura of security, stability, and privacy. Solid doors give off an aura of strength and safety to the buyers when they walk to your door front. Contemporary designs would also give a look of brightness and newness to your home even though it’s already several years old.

• Repainted Walls –

  The walls give life to both the exterior and interior of a home. If the paint on your walls is already flaking off from the water running down the pipes from your roof and eaves. Or have scratches and kids’ drawings on the interiors, they might look untidy to some buyers. Others might not mind, but fresh paint can easily make everything look new. A fresh coat of paint should bring your walls back to the bright look they had the day you walked into your home.

However, if you think you won’t have time to do these minor reworks and upgrades. You should at least do repairs on the basic things. Remember to check and replace any lightings, fixtures, or switches that might already be causing poorly lit spaces, including the lights outside the house. Inspect leaking pipes and faucets dripping noisily even when they’re closed. Even if you’re in a hurry, you should still do some deep cleaning.

3. Do Some Deep Cleaning And Preparations

Whether you’ll still have the time to do some last-minute minor reworks and upgrades or not. What you can’t skip is the preparations and clean-up part. If you’ve done some refurbishing and repainting. You might not need to do a lot of work on your ceilings, walls, toilets, floors, and tiles. But if you won’t have time to do some minor reworks and repainting. Then you have to do some serious deep cleaning of all the nooks and crannies of your home.

Not being able to clean regularly contributes to the wear and tear of your ceilings, walls, posts, and corners. Some of them might even be deteriorating within the home’s structure. Which you might not be able to notice since it’s hard to see what’s happening inside the wood or behind panels and surfaces. If you’re about to sell your home and you haven’t been doing a regular deep cleaning. You should seriously consider hiring professional services for some of these tasks:

• Pest Control Experts –

  You’ll need to hire pest control technicians who can inspect your ceiling, walls, columns, posts, floors, and cabinets for possible pest or termite infestation. If your home buyer sees any signs of the pest, termite, or bug infestation. This could be a negative point against your home and could affect your negotiating position for a good final price.

• Professional Cleaners –

  Even if your home is still free from pest or termite infestation. You should still consider getting the services of professional cleaners to do the general deep cleaning for you. They use cleaning equipment and specialty cleaning chemicals that you might not be able to buy in retail stores or wouldn’t know how to use.

• Experienced Contractors Or Tradespeople –

  Unless you have actual work experience and skills in doing home repair works. You should consider hiring experienced contractors or tradespeople to do these tasks for you. You should have your plumbing and electrical wiring checked by experienced tradespeople. Buyers would also be hiring inspection engineers to check the structural integrity of your home. So it’s better to avoid any surprises.

• Home Stagers –

  If you have the budget for it, you might also want to have someone who stages homes to spruce up your home’s interiors.

4. Work With A Real Estate Agent

Some buyers try to minimize the expenses they have to pay for professional fees. So they don’t hire a real estate agent to save on the 5-6% of commissions. However, real estate agents can provide some value-added services to the entire effort of selling a home. For one, real estate agents know the pricing of comparable homes and could give you a good estimate for your property.

Aside from getting the most accurate price for your home based on comparable listings and the expected valuation from professional appraisers. Real estate agents can do a lot of other things that can help you sell your home more quickly for a much higher price.

These Include the Following Services:

• Staging Your Home –

  Real estate agents can help you stage your home. They can get some of the best photographers, videographers, and home stagers at very affordable rates because they work with these professionals all the time. You might not have access to the same network of people or you might not be able to get the best among them at friendly prices if you were to do things on your own.

• Property Listings –

  Real estate agents have numerous pending and active listings all being designed, prepared, and uploaded to go live at any given time. Listings are practically the lifeblood of real estate agents. They know which ones work best on certain platforms and listing sites. They have a good sense if an inquiry is a serious one. They’d know how to sort the qualified serious buyers from those who are just asking around.

• Entertaining And Negotiating Buyers and Their Agents –

  Another role that real estate agents play very well is that of entertaining and negotiating with buyers and their real estate agents. Of course, you can do this on your own. But having your own real estate agent would create a good impression among your potential buyers that the sale is being handled by a professional from your end.

• Working On Documents –

  Selling and buying a home isn’t a handshake deal. You and the buyer might get along so well and close the sale after a few meetings and visits to the home for sale. However, the process doesn’t end there. Once you and the buyer agree on the deal, documents and paperwork have to be prepared by the real estate agents, lawyers, appraisers, and banks. Having a real estate agent on your side will help do these things more efficiently and quickly.

5. Get In Touch With Cash Home Buyers

If you’re really in a hurry to sell your home, or you need some cash fast. You might want to consider getting in touch with cash home buyers. This will give you the option of skipping the other tasks involved in the sales effort such as hiring a real estate agent, hiring a home stager, and getting the services of professional cleaners and repair workers.

With a cash home buyer, you’ll only have to deal with one party. You just call up a reputable cash home buyer near you. They’ll set you up with someone in charge of accounts and purchases who will discuss with you a few things about your home. Everything happens over a phone call and before you know it. They’ll send someone to head to your home for a quick inspection and property appraisal. They’re very good at what they do and they don’t need to know a lot before they pitch their offer price.

Be Ready To Go Low For A Quick Sale

If you want to sell your home fast, you should be prepared to reduce the asking price that you gave to real estate agents. This doesn’t mean that you just pluck a number out of thin air as your lower selling price. You should still go through the motions of getting the most accurate selling price for your home based on all the known property valuation methods. But once you get the price range for your home and comps. You should be ready to go with the lowest selling price in the range if you need to sell your home quickly and the cash home buyer pitches a good offer.