How To Sell Your House Fast – 9 Tips To Get The Most From Your Home Sale

By Pinyo, on August 26, 2009

Due to the credit crisis and recession, there are a lot of houses for sale. Homeowners who are trying to avoid foreclosure are selling many of these homes. Needless to say, it’s a buyer’s market and homeowners need to know all the tricks to help them sell their homes quickly. Fortunately, there are proven techniques that you can use to help you sell your home quicker and some of these will even help you get more money for your home.

Tips To Sell Your Home In A Buyer’s Market

To make sure your home sells in a buyer’s market, there are a few things that you could do. Here are 9 home improvement techniques to help you sell your home more quickly:

1. Make sure you are selling at the right price

I know it’s very difficult to sell your home for less than what you bought it for a few years ago. It’s even harder if you’re upside down on your home loan.  But you can’t insist on unrealistic price if you want to sell your home in a down market. To find the right price, you can check other homes for sale in your area, check web sites like Zillow and HomeGain, or get an appraisal.

Although you can’t compete with banks that are selling foreclosed homes, you’ll be in a much better position to compete against other sellers who aren’t as flexible on price.

2. Remove clutter from your home

Photo by Annahape via Flickr

No one wants to buy a messy rat hole. So make sure your house is clean and organized. Remove as much clutter as you can, even if you have to store your stuff in storage. You can get an idea of how your home should look by browsing through magazines or even IKEA catalog. And here are some general tips to help guide you:

• Tables, desks, and countertops should be mostly clear to show as much surface space as possible.
• Remove family photos from walls, shelves, and fireplace mantle (if you have one). You want the potential buyers to picture themselves living in the house, not looking at your family history.
• Remove any unnecessary furniture and put it into storage to give your house more living space.
• Remove unnecessary electronics, extension cords, and power strips. Most buyers don’t care about your mega entertainment system. And you don’t want it to be obvious that your electrical system is old and lacking.
• Remove clothing from your closets and put it into storage to make the closets feel bigger.
• Remove all the extra clutter throughout the house to make it feel bigger and more spacious.

3. Improve your home curb appeal

Photo by MichiganMoves via Flickr

First impression means a lot, and for your home the name of the game is curb appeal. If you’re a fan of HGTV Curb Appeal, you’ll know exactly what I mean. The goal here is not to spend a lot of money to improve your home, rather you’re trying to do inexpensive things (that may require some sweat equity) to improve the appearance of your home. You want your home to look better than other houses in the area and in a “move in ready” condition.

Here are a few things you could do to improve your home curb appeal:

• Trim hedges and mow your lawn.
• Clean all windows and surfaces.
• Repaint walls, doors, and trims in neutral colors.
• Replace old window blinds or drapes, and update the window treatments.
• Power wash or paint the exterior.

4. Fix problems around the house

Now go throughout the house room by room, and take notes of all the things that need fixing. Little things matter and they could turnoff your buyers.  If you noticed them, the buyer will too. Take the time to go around and fix those things one by one. Remember that fixing these small problems doesn’t have to be expensive, but it will take time and effort.

5. Learn the Art of Home Staging

Photo by Wonderlane via Flickr

Home staging is not decluttering and cleaning. Home staging goes beyond that and happens after the steps above. It involves much less tangible things that include:

• Making the home smells fresh and airy. Some will even go as far as baking cookies before a showing to give the house a pleasant aroma.
• Making sure the temperature is right. You want the potential buyer to feel comfortable.
• Making sure rooms are properly lit by adjusting the window treatments and turning on/off lights.
• Arranging pieces of furniture in an appealing manner.
• Putting vases of fresh flowers on tables, or a small fruit basket on the dinning table.
• Showcasing various fabrics, decors, and knickknacks.
• Arranging items on shelves, bookcases and fireplace mantels to draw attention to predetermined areas.

You can read more about home staging at: Home Staging & Staging a House – What is Home Staging.

6. Leverage the power of the web to market your house

This is the Internet age and you should not let your agent limits your reach. Leverage online venues to help sell your house.  For example, put home for sale ads on Craigslist, Zillow, and HomeGain. Promote the house through your online social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can also send out a copy of your listing to people on your email list to see if they know anyone that might be looking for a house in your neighborhood.

Use every channel that you have at your disposal!

7. Get a good agent to help you sell

In general, it’s better to work with an agent than trying to sell the house on your own. It’s their full time job to find buyers and show your home. This is harder than it looks and it’s generally better to leave this to the pro. However, you have to remember you’re the boss and that we are dealing with a lot of money here. So don’t just pick any agent that comes along. Call several real estate offices and ask to talk to their top sales agents. Make sure you are comfortable working with the person and ask questions. Here are some good questions you can ask your real estate agent.

Another important thing to remember is never go into an exclusive contract with your agent. You want to be able to fire your real estate agent if he or she sucks.

8. Be creative

This is a buyer’s market, but even so, a house is still very expensive for most people. If you have a buyer that needs help to close the deal, consider offering some sort of incentives to make the deal happens. For example, you can offer to cover some parts of the closing costs. This works especially well with first time homebuyers).

Be creative!

9. Don’t be there

When you are having an open house, leave the house. It’s uncomfortable for you to have strangers in your home, and likewise, it’s uncomfortable to be in other people’s home. So why create any more tension? Leave the house and let your real estate agent takes care of business. Let your buyers look around at their leisure without your scrutiny.

Selling your house in a down market isn’t easy, but you can do some work to make your chances better.  In the end your house will show better, and you’ll be able to sell your house that much quicker.

Do you have your own tips to help a home sell faster?  Were there things that you did when selling your house that made it more attractive to buyers?  Let us know about it in the comments section!

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Pinyo is the brain behind Moolanomy personal finance blog and a few other web sites. If you like this article, please subscribe for free daily email updates.

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