If it’s your first time selling a house in 2020, make sure you know these 7 best-kept secrets for the first time house seller.
Experts predict that 2020 will be a great year to sell a house. They expect 5.27 million homeowners to sell their houses during the year.
If you want to sell your house this year, now is the time to start preparing for it.
As a first-time house seller, you probably have questions about the process, though, and that’s to be expected.
For example, you might want to know what matters the most when selling your house.
If this is something you wonder, here are seven of the best-kept secrets you should know as you plan to sell your home.
1. Timing Matters for a House Seller
One of the best pieces of advice you can receive as a first-time home seller is that timing matters. The timing of when you list your home makes a difference with your sale.
Experts generally recommend listing in the spring, such as April or May. Most people who are shopping for homes to purchase begin looking around this time. If you list later than this, you might miss out on a lot of home buyers.
Selling a house in the late fall and winter months tends to be the most challenging time of year to sell. If you list during this time, you should expect delays in finding a buyer.
Timing is crucial for selling a single-family house or an attached home.
2. Staging Is More Essential Than Ever Before
The second secret to know is the value of staging your house. Staging requires several steps, but the goal is always the same. You stage your home to make people like it more.
To stage it, you may need to perform the following steps:
- Remove clutter and unnecessary belongings
- Rearrange furniture and decorations
- Paint the rooms neutral colors
- Update obsolete features
- Clean up your yard and exterior of your home
When you finish staging, your home should look appealing to anyone that may drive by or walk through the door.
3. An Immaculate House Sells
Next, you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of offering an immaculate home. Buyers will pass up homes that are not clean and tidy.
Deep cleaning is often part of the staging process, and you should even consider hiring a professional if you need help getting your home to a point where it is immaculate.
When you clean your house before selling it, you should include the following tasks:
- Carpet cleaning services
- Polishing wood floors
- Replacing caulk around plumbing fixtures
- Cleaning the windows
- Scrubbing the appliances and plumbing fixtures
By the time you finish this step, your house may look like an entirely new home.
4. Know How to Present Your Closets
Another top-secret thing to know about selling a house is that you need to arrange your closets in a certain way. Buyers today look for homes with spacious storage space, and they examine closets for this reason.
Do you want to make your closets look more appealing to buyers? If so, follow these tips:
- Remove any junk that doesn’t belong in them
- Organize them, so they look meticulous and well-thought-out
- Leave them half-full instead of completely full
- Make sure each one has a clear purpose
When people come to see your home and peek inside the closets, the work you did will impress them. Offering a house with nice closets is a big bonus to home buyers.
5. Depersonalizing Makes a Big Difference
You should also take the time when staging your home to depersonalize it. You might be wondering what it means to depersonalize a house and why you should do it, and these are good questions.
Depersonalizing a house means that you remove all personal effects from the home. You take down family photos and decorations that only you would appreciate.
This process has two primary purposes:
- It separates the house from you owning it and living there
- It allows the buyers to freely imagine living in your home
You might not think that this step makes a difference, but it does.
6. Smart Home Features Sell
If you’re willing to invest some money in the home, one area to invest in is smart home features. People buying homes today love these types of features, especially the millennial generation.
One option is to install a video doorbell system. With this system, you can see who is at your door from your phone. The best part is that you don’t even have to be home to see who it is.
Another option is to install surveillance cameras. You can buy some systems for reasonable prices, yet they provide excellent coverage and services.
Installing a keyless lock system is another ideal choice. These locks are affordable and easy to install, and they provide the homeowner with a way to enter a house without carrying a key.
7. The Price Always Affects a Home Sale
The final tip to know is that price always affects the sale of a home. You can pick the price you ask for your home, but you shouldn’t do this flippantly. The amount you choose will help you sell your home, or it will hinder selling your home.
You should always ask a real estate expert to help you determine the price before you put it on your home listing.
What to Do Next
Following these tips may help you have a fast and straightforward sale, but there are other ways to sell homes, too.
House sellers can turn to companies who buy homes for cash, and that is what we do. We buy all homes and pay cash for all of them.
If you want to eliminate the work required from all these steps, give us a call. We’d love to provide you with a quote for your home today!