Selling your home quickly allows you to move on with the next steps of your life sooner rather than later. It also allows you to spend less time maintaining your home and preparing it for prospective buyers. How quickly and for what price your home sells depends on many factors other than timing. Here are 15 tips to sell your home quicker, regardless of when you list it.
Here are 15 tips to sell your home quickly:
- Choose a sales strategy
- Hire an experienced real estate agent
- Everything should be cleaned
- Depersonalize your home
- Let in the light
- Get rid of excess furniture and clutter
- Stage your home
- Invest in a professional photographer
- Have a 3D tour done
- Improve the appearance of your home’s exterior
- The entryway should be perfect
- Repaint with neutral colors
- Make necessary updates
- Be flexible with showings
- Choose the right listing price
1. Choose a sales strategy
It’s crucial to choose the best selling strategy for you before putting up a yard sign. A real estate agent may be the best choice if you would rather spend your time on other things. You may wish to contact an iBuyer if you want to sell your home as quickly as possible. This entity can close the sale faster than a typical homebuyer. Avoid switching between selling strategies while your home is on the market. Constantly changing circumstances could turn off buyers.
2. Hire an experienced real estate agent
Finding the right real estate agent to sell your house is a must if you are selling it by placing it on the market. When you are interviewing potential agents, be sure to pay attention to the level of experience they have. Find an agent who you feel comfortable working with and also has a good understanding of the market. This is probably the most important of the tips to sell your home faster since your real estate agent can help you with all of the things on this list. A lot of the little things you may think are necessary to get a home ready for sale come from experience.
3. Everything should be cleaned
A dirty home is a turn-off for buyers. If you are unable to do the deep cleaning yourself, hire a professional. The home should be neat and clean when it is put on the market.
Cleaning your house before you sell it includes:
- Kitchen countertops
- Inside cabinets and appliances
- Dusty floors and corners of rooms
- Shelves
- Bathroom counters, toilets, tubs, showers
- Inside of closets
- Windows inside and outside
- Walls, doors and baseboards
- Basement and garage
4. Depersonalize your home
One of the most common tips to sell your home quickly is depersonalize your home. Removing all family photos and other memorabilia is a great start. You want the buyers to think of your house as their home, not yours. Remove all political and religious items from the fridge, as well as artwork by your children (and anything else). This will help the buyer see the house more neutrally. It’s the same for collections like figurines, sports equipment or children’s toys. They can cause a buyer to think more about you than about your house. Replace family photos with neutral art, or remove them altogether. Just make sure to remove any nails and repair any nail holes.
5. Let in the light
Let the sunshine in! People love bright and sunny homes. Open the blinds, shades and curtains and turn on lights in dark rooms. Put strategically placed lamps or other light sources in the room to create a mood. While your home is being shown, you should open all the curtains and switch on lights each time you leave. The cleaner your windows are, the better. It may seem simple but sparkling windows will bring more light into your home.
6. Get rid of excess furniture and clutter
Too much large furniture can make a house seem smaller. Rent a self storage container or a storage unit and remove all the furniture you can. People should declutter their homes and remove personal items. Remove all knick-knacks, pack them up, and store them away. Clear your countertops in the kitchen and bathroom, and remove any appliances that you don’t use. You can make your home’s storage seem larger by reducing the amount of stuff in your closets.
7. Stage your home
If you have an interesting sense of style, it may be difficult for buyers to view your home as a “blank slate”. It may be best to stage the home using furniture that’s brought in. You can use a furniture warehouse to stage homes. But many real estate agents use third-party staging companies. Homes that are well-staged often sell more quickly and for more money than similar homes that are not. So don’t underestimate this one when looking for tips to sell your home faster and move to your next home.
8. Invest in a professional photographer
According to NAR’s 2022 profile on home buyers and sellers, 96% of recent buyers used online search tools to find homes. Your listing photos may not show the best features of your house, and prospective buyers will reject it before even visiting the open house or taking a tour. A professional photographer can help you attract buyers by posting 30 photos of the inside and outside of your house. Amateur photos are no longer enough. You need professional photography as well as a floorplan, virtual photography and video.
9. Have a 3D tour done
After the COVID-19 pandemic, 3D tours of houses became the norm for those who wanted to sell their home, but couldn’t visit in person. It is not unusual for people to make purchases without seeing the property first. Your agent’s virtual tours and video tours can help buyers get a better feel for your property even if they haven’t visited it. Remember that video and 3D tours will reveal flaws in your home that are difficult to conceal in photographs. So make sure your house is in perfect condition before you shoot a tour.
10. Improve the appearance of your home’s exterior
First impressions are irreversible. That’s what makes curb appeal so important. Your entryway can be given a boost with a newly painted front door, new numbers for your house and a mailbox. Fresh landscaping, as well as flowers in flower beds or pots can also improve the first impression of your home. Trim the trees and bushes. Clean up the flower beds. Remove dead leaves. Clear out cobwebs in nooks around the entrance. Pressure-wash patios, decks and walkways. Keep the outside lights on as well, since prospective buyers might drive by late at night.
11. The entryway should be perfect
You still have to impress buyers once they are inside your house. Buyers make a decision about a home within the first few seconds of walking in. While your home is being sold, keep the foyer as clean and clutter-free as possible. It should appear as welcoming and open as possible. You may be limited in where you can paint, or what floors you can refinish. The areas that are immediately visible at the entrance will make the most difference.
12. Repaint with neutral colors
Paint your house a new color to make it look fresh and modern. It’s time to paint your daughter’s purple room, remove the turquoise bathroom that is too quirky and hide the accent wall of your dining area. A busy wallpaper may also deter potential buyers. You want to create a neutral color palette that allows buyers to imagine their own personal touches. You want the buyer to be able to appreciate the home for what it really is. On the walls, use neutral shades like gray, taupe or cream. White is the most popular color, especially because new homes are being sold and older homes are trying to mimic the look of brand-new interiors.
13. Make necessary updates
You may want to do some minor repairs and home improvements before putting your property on the market if your kitchen, bathroom or living room are outdated. There are many items you can update to prepare your house for sale. Even a few thousand dollars can make a huge difference in the final price of your home. Buyers who focus on the cost of remodeling all their rooms will likely subtract that amount from the price they offer.
14. Be flexible with showings
The buyers want to be able to view homes at their convenience, which is often evenings or weekends. They also want to see the home as soon as they can after finding it online, particularly if they are competing with other buyers. Your home will be seen by more buyers if it can be toured with little to no notice. They may decide to ignore your home if you need 24 hours notice. That means one less person gets to view the property. You should also be prepared to leave before the buyer arrives. If you are still cleaning or waiting outside, this can create an awkward situation.
15. Choose the right listing price
Of all of the tips to sell your home faster, this one may get ignored the most. Real estate is a tough market and sellers want to get as much as possible for their homes. But setting a price that is too high and then lowering it later does not work. You need to choose the right listing price. The information available to buyers and their agents on comparable properties is more extensive than ever, and most know the value of a home before they even see it. Homes that are overpriced at the start tend to remain on the market for longer even after they have been reduced. This is because buyers believe there must be some problem with the home. No amount of presentation will fix a price that is too high.