Getting Your House Market-Ready
The truth is, sometimes you don’t have a choice: sometimes, the only thing that makes sense is selling your house as is. However, in ideal circumstances, you can prepare a little bit beforehand.
Following, in no particular order, we’ll go over a few items you want to consider before listing your property. It’s possible to get tens of thousands of dollars more, with the right preparation.
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Consultation With Professionals, Friends, And Family
Try not to go into the process blind. The more you know, the better your outcome will be. Figure out where the market is, and where it’s going. Figure out what the neighborhood your in will do to your listing ability. Sometimes a bad property in a good neighborhood is worth more owing to its location. Sometimes a good house in a bad neighborhood is worth less.
Consulting with local real estate professionals can be very helpful here, but some won’t give out information except at a price. You can sidestep this through friends and family. How many friends do you have on social media; a thousand?
One of those people will know more than you about listing a house. You’ve got parents, aunts, cousins, and siblings who probably know a few things as well. Plans fail for lack of counsel—so be sure and acquire some counsel.
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Appraisal–Call In Favors, Maybe Wait Till After Refurbishment
One of the things you need to do before you start actually fixing up your property to sell is get it appraised. Now professional appraisers will give you an exact number, and they often charge for their services—unless you know somebody; then call in a favor. If you know what you’re doing, you can refurbish first and appraise after to save this cost.
However, if you don’t have favors or personal resources to rely on, really maximize that appraiser’s attention. Quiz them down on inside and outside changes that will bring more value, and figure out which ones are affordable when compared to the potential profit they bring.
If you’re in a bad neighborhood, $50k of upgrades may only bring $30k of value—you’ll waste money. Unless you live there, it’s not worth it. But if you’re in a great community, you may not need to do anything to sell your property at a profit. Still, refurbishing will get you more return on your investment if you’re wise.
3. Renovation, Installation, Repair, Refurbishing
Once you know the “lay of the land”, as it were, it’s time to fix your home up. Do some landscaping, install a sprinkler system, put in a 3.1 kWh solar energy system at $5k and see between $10k and $20k in property value increase, doubling or quadrupling your investment. Spend $3k on a DIY deck bringing $5k in value. Redo the roof. Finish basements and attics.
In short, go through your property with a fine-toothed comb, repair what needs fixing, refurbish what’s out of date, install new features as it’s feasible, and generally renovate the entirety of the premises. You can expect an average property value increase that basically pays you twice what you spend at minimum—provided you’re strategic, and renovate right.
That means if you spent $50k in renovation, you could stand to see $100k in increased value. But if you don’t spend wise, you’re throwing your money away, so do consultation beforehand to get the balance right.
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Staging The Property, Secondary Appraisal, Listing
When it’s finally time to list the property, that may be the time to get an appraisal if doing so didn’t make sense before. Once you’ve got that appraisal, get things staged with perfumes and staging furniture, and list your home either with a real estate office, or somewhere else. You could sell the property yourself, if you’re savvy; but realtors save a lot of effort.
Getting The Most For Your Property
If you can sidestep the Realtor fee, you’ll likely earn between $10k and $50k, depending on the size of your property. But the time necessary to do that could extend the selling process months or years, so this may not be worth it.
It’s different for everyone; but if you list after appropriate appraisal, staging, refurbishment, and consultation, you’ll likely be able to put your home on the market at the most ideal price, and see more return on your property investment than you could otherwise.
