Local Selling Tips

For property owners looking to sell, I strongly suggest that you do a few things prior to beginning marketing your home for sale.

First you want to do the easy things and de-clutter the home. Pack up as many things as you can and store them away in the garage or rent a storage unit. This helps because you need to pack your belongings up anyway, and removal of all the excess "Stuff"  that is in your home will allow potential buyers to better view the home and mentally place themselves living there.

Next, you would be well advised to tour some of the other homes that are for sale in your area. This will allow you to see the features in other  homes that are most common and would attract more buyers. For example if most of the homes in your area are featuring granite countertops you may want to consider boosting the marketability of your home by replacing the laminate countertops in your home with those made of granite.  The second thing that seeing other homes in your area does for you is to give you a realistic guage, by which you can measure your initial thoughts with regard to pricing.  Once you see what your competition is like inside, you can better understand where you need to position your property within the market to get it sold.

Another recommedation is to go ahead and get a proffessional home inspection done. You will benefit in two ways by doing this. First, you will learn of any repair issues that are in need of attention, so you can take care of them now, or budget for them over time, to be addressed at a later date. Secondly, by having this inspection done early, it can be used in the marketing of your home. The report can be placed  out for potential buyers to view as they tour the home. This added information is comforting to buyers, to know that they should not be surprised by a list of problems, after they sign a purchase agreement.  

Seller's may also think strongly about getting the buyer a home warrantee now, and to include themselves on the selling side. What this does is two-fold, it gives potential buyers the added piece of mind that they are covered if something does go wrong in the house after they close, and it covers the home sellers for items which may fail,during the time the house is being marketed for sale. Now you don't have to worry about paying another repair expense while the house is for sale. One of the seller's I was working with signed up for the seller's coverage and a few months into the listing period, her air conditioner stopped working. We called the warrantee company and the whole compressor was replaced!  That was a huge savings to her and most definetly a sigh of relief that she did not have that major expense to have to deal with.

Finally, seller's need to change the way they think about the place you are living.  You live in a house, and it is a commodity that can be bought and sold. The expression is" Home is where the heart is";... so remember that your home,and all the memories you have with it, will always travel with you. When you begin the selling process you need to try to de-personalize and distance yourself from referring to your residence as home, CHANGE YOUR WORDS TO HOUSE and after you have used that vocabulary for a while you will get used to the idea of selling your house as a product and you can begin looking forward to locating your new home.