5 Tips to Make YOUR Home More Attractive to Buyers
No matter the market in which you find yourself selling a home, nearly all sellers want the same things: a swift transaction for the best price and profit available. To that end, there are many things you can do to make your home stand out from the crowd and bring the best offers in to the table. Of course, each situation and home is different, but here are some areas where we have seen sellers have success:
Professional Staging
Ideal for vacant homes or rental properties for sale, staging involves a professional or team coming into the space and providing coordinating furniture, art, area rugs, and accents to make living spaces look amazing. Some people have no issue with coming into an empty space and imagining the possibilities. Others (like me!) have more trouble “seeing” themselves in an empty home. Tasteful design can make all the difference for people to be able to picture their gatherings, leisure time, and family enjoyment happening in your home.
Clean & Paint
Easy, right? Well, not so much. You would be surprised how many times we do an initial walkthrough of a home and the biggest issue is that it’s just not clean. Buyers are immediately turned off by wading through piles of clutter or trash. I mean, think about how you feel in really messy or overloaded places- uncomfortable, right? Well people who aren’t comfortable somewhere certainly aren’t going to buy that home! And painting is an inexpensive way to really improve your home’s appeal. Choose neutral and inviting colors. Put your best impressions forward by touching up paint nicks and finishing that last undone room so you’re presenting a clean, fresh living space.
The Great Outdoors
What is the FIRST thing a new visitor to your home sees? The yard and exterior, right? So don’t neglect these areas to ensure a great kickoff to buyers’ visits to your home. Power wash or paint siding as needed, fix stairs and railings, and wash windows. Now is the time to reattach that missing gutter section and replace broken fencing or torn screens. As we all know, a nice yard can deliver quite an impact fairly inexpensively, and we suggest planting flowers, bushes, spreading mulch and keeping lawns edged and trimmed throughout the selling process to make your home shine.
Use a Professional Realtor©
Realtors are experienced in the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to marketing your home and generating top offers. It can be attractive to save the money on commission, but tread carefully here. You will need experience with legal documents related to the transaction, such as purchase agreements, seller’s disclosures, and title documents. You will also be responsible for making people aware that the home is for sale, setting up times for it to be shown by you or buyer’s agents, hosting open houses, and navigating differences in offers. Keep in mind that all of these things are expected in certain time frames as well, and if you’re busy and don’t respond to an email or call quickly enough that could mean a lost sale. If this doesn’t sound attractive to you (as it does not to most people), that commission quickly becomes more than worth it! Ask friends and family for referrals to agents that have worked hard for them in the past if you don’t know a Realtor© in your area.
GET OUT! (Seriously).
Please don’t be offended, but YOU are by far not your home’s best feature! Potential buyers feel much more comfortable when they can tour homes with their agent or attend open houses without the current owners being home. This allows conversation to flow freely and comfort to be developed while touring the home, which is what sellers WANT to have happen to garner interest. Hovering sellers can kill potential deals when buyers just can’t get a sense of the space becoming “theirs”.
We want you to make it absolutely impossible for buyers to say no to your home! Set yourself up for selling success by following these tips, and those of your agent when you select one. If you’re in the West Michigan area, we would love the opportunity to earn your business! Please contact the NexT LeveL Realty team at Bellabay Realty:
Robert Brown: Associate Broker/GRI/Listing Agent
616-528-0736 mrrlbrown@gmail.com
Jeff Haarman: Buyer’s Agent
616-940-0449 jeffsellsgrandrapids@gmail.com
Comments(3)