When you plan to sell your home, make sure you are aligned with new real estate trends and carefully consider the odds you would be facing if you prefer to take the road less traveled. Selling your house, especially in a short period would require you some creativity and tips to get a great sale.
Realtors and brokers are there for support, but if you’re a thrifty homeowner who wants to get a sale without paying so much in broker fees, check out the tips below for a smart and efficient approach.
1. Declutter and Deep Clean
Preparing to sell your home includes the need to declutter and eliminate unnecessary stuff from your house and put it in temporary storage. Since spaciousness is usually the prime selling mark of every house, the less clutter, the better.
Deep cleaning every nook and cranny of the house can also help brighten a space. The brighter space makes it easier for light to bounce off which helps in making your home look more appealing.
Ensure that when preparing your home for sale, you’re able to see it as a new house that a potential buyer would want to make it their own. Decluttering could also mean removing the character, history, and a “live-in feeling” from the house to make room for a new space the buyer could envision as a home.
2. Repair and Replace
The second most important step that many homeowners often prefer to overlook because of the cost are the repairs. Like it or not, every home that’s been lived in has been damaged one way or another. Whether it’s a leaky bathroom sink or a crumbling garage roof, fixing them would play a huge role in making the house more sellable.
While other parts of the house may still be working fine, it is best to seek improvement every chance you get. Replace light fixtures so sufficient lighting is enhanced in every space of the house.
Exterior also matters, which means houses with a yard or a garden could also use a revamp to help draw buyers in before they even get to the front door.
3. Sales Talk and Staging
When it comes to showing off your revamped home up for sale, the theatrics come to play. Staging the potential of your house is what counts most when selling it. Remember to be tasteful in the little tokens you would leave around during a buyer’s visit.
Although you could hire a staging company for an empty house, the most sincere touches could go a long way. Leaving fresh flowers over the fireplace, setting the dinner table, or even preparing a sweet tray of brownies for your viewers could make a difference.
The staging is one thing but sales talk is another thing. A hard sell hardly works when selling houses, especially last-minute. Make sure to brush up on your research and learn a little about the potential buyer. Use soft diplomacy to negotiate and compromise, while also leaving them a little curious about their new life in the house.
4. Research and Set your Price Right
As much as you would like to sell your home more than it’s worth, more often than not a buyer would find a loophole to counter the price. It is best to manage your expectations and set a realistic price when you plan to sell your house. Before putting it on the market, do the necessary research on the real estate industry in general and in your local state.
This could mean taking personal objectives and motivations into account like the time frame in which you want to make a sale, the location’s demand, as well as other technical aspects. Some other technical jargon could include how to interpret comps, comparable sales of houses similar to yours, and zip codes with a proficient sales pattern in the last five years.
Regardless, studying the local market could help you understand how to best sell your house in an increasingly competitive market. With the global pandemic leaving buyers with slim pickings, knowing how to estimate your house’s worth is a great stepping stone. Consider looking through online pricing calculators like Zillow’s Zestimate that will give you an estimate of your home’s market value based on an effective home valuation model and other user-submitted data.
5. Try Using Sites or Apps with No-Fee Listings
One way to play it smart while making a sale is to start looking through websites and apps that specialize in helping you sell small homes, apartments, condos, etc. while skipping the broker fees. In highly populated urbanized cities like New York, many homeowners prefer to list their apartments or houses on sites like StreetEasy and LeaseBreak.
These sites specialize in helping renters, buyers, and sellers find the right home with their own listed brokers. This is one good way to avoid broker fees since these websites usually come with discounts on broker fees.
Since New York is a busy city with more than 8 million people and considering the 153,065 people who left the city due to the COVID pandemic, selling your house could be a bit of a challenge and even a hefty task. However, taking advantage of serious buyers who have a good credit history can be done when you make use of all possible references online.
What to Know About Broker Fees in the US
Broker fees in the US are very common in populated hotspots like Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. These fees can be a handful to pay since it’s basically like paying a realtor to help you purchase or sell a home.
Broker fees tend to add up into a substantial amount if not charged in the percentage of the total agreement. This is usually between 10 to 15%, which ultimately is a full month’s rent if you’re doing the math right.
Part of a broker’s job is to help you maximize the potential of selling your house and by doing so, you would be contributing to transactions that make up at least 11% of the real estate market. With commissions altering here and there, broker fees are usually racked up when consultations, negotiations, and purchases take longer than expected.
This is where several brokers offer discounts to their fees to attract more customers long term. This way they can gain a little more control on market share.
Goodbye Broker
There is a lot to consider when selling your home and since it’s usually one of the biggest transactions a person is going to make, proper research is key. If it’s your first time selling your home then the need for a broker is an investment you should carefully consider.
But if you’re scrappy and have the time to put in the manual work to sell your house, then decluttering, repairing, and staging your home is a process you should fully wrap your head around. It may not be an easy task but once you’ve done the nitty-gritty, proper research and market study could help you maximize a worthy sale to a serious buyer.
If you’re not willing to put in the effort of renovating your home, you can still sell your house fast by negotiating for a cash offer from a direct and trustworthy buyer.