Selling your home takes a lot of planning. You have to find a new home to live in, plan the move, and on top of that you need to prep your home to sell, so you won’t be saddled with two mortgage payments at the same time.
Let us help you figure out how to prep your home to maximize its selling price and make your move as pain-free as possible.
Sometimes the challenge of prepping your home for a sale is a little too much to handle. In that case, you might consider hiring a professional stager.
Professional stagers are real estate specialists that can stage the rooms of your home with an artful touch. Ever wondered how some for-sale homes have such elegantly decorated spaces? If it seems professionally done, it probably was.
By maximizing your home’s aesthetic appeal, professional stagers can make prospective buyers more likely to make an excellent offer.
Depending on the stager you hire, they may also:
But it’s also true that a professional stager can take a big bite out of your budget. If you have other moving expenses to think about (and trust us, those can get pricey fast!), relying on some old-fashioned elbow grease to prep your home to sell might be a better idea.
These five tips should help you get ready to sell your home and move without breaking the bank!
“Curb appeal” is simply your home’s exterior attractiveness. It can be affected by your home’s paint and siding, the condition of your lawn, landscaping, fencing, and even the front sidewalks.
The last thing you want is for a prospective buyer to refuse to check out the inside of your home because the outside is unappealing. You can boost your home’s curb appeal by making repairs, replacing a fence or repainting your old fence, and so on.
To maximize your results, focus on:
Once you’ve improved your home’s curb appeal, you’ll need to turn your attention to the interior rooms just like a professional stager would.
If you like interior design, you’re in luck! Now’s the chance to redecorate your home’s rooms for maximum aesthetic points instead of practical needs.
Even if interior design isn’t your thing, stick to the basics, and you’ll make your home look cleaner and more appealing to anyone who walks through the front door.
For example, make sure that couches, tables, and other furniture are cleared of clutter and are dusted regularly. Hang up attractive paintings and consider purchasing or renting a few pieces of new furniture.
If you don’t have the budget to spare for a few new pieces of furniture to make your rooms look fabulous, consider a furniture loan from Regional Finance. Similarly, an appliance loan can let you replace the old fridge with a new one, making your kitchen look that much more appealing to a prospective buyer. Consider these items as an investment in the comfort of your new home.
As with the outside of your home, it might be a good idea to repaint any walls or rooms in your home that need a boost. A few coats of paint can easily make your living room, kitchen, or bedrooms look like new. Use neutral colors to allow prospective buyers to project their own preferences into the space.
If you decide that you don’t want to paint, be sure to remove any smears or spots on the walls. Check areas on the walls where these spots are common, like the bottoms of doors and around doorframes.
We touched on this earlier, but it’s important to reiterate that you must remove all the clutter around your house. Otherwise, anyone who stops by for a look might not notice your home’s spacious kitchen or updated bathrooms because they’re distracted by your personal items.
You should specifically focus on:
Most people find this part of the process to be a bit depressing. But don’t forget that it’s only temporary until you move into your new home and find new places for all your favorite things.
On the plus side, packing up your personal items will give you a head start on the moving process.
It may be challenging to sell a house that looks like it will come with months of repairs after move-in. If you want to sell your house on time and for a great price, you’ll need to take care of any obvious repairs as part of your preparations.
These include fixing sidewalk cracks, spots where the carpet was pulled up, broken counters, etc. Depending on how long you’ve lived in a home, your repairs could be expensive. However, the repairs you make will be well worth it. You should be able to sell your house for a better price if you make repairs before you list it. Sell your home for enough of a profit and you may make back your repair costs plus some extra.
Finally, it’s a good idea to hire a listing agent no matter your moving budget. Listing agents are real estate agents who specialize in helping clients sell their homes.
If you’re getting ready to move, it can be a hassle to manage your sale by yourself while juggling all the things that come with selling a property, including:
Listing agents can assist with these challenges and ideas for staging. With the right listing agent, you’ll get the help you need with listing your home, securing a great sale price, and settling on a closing date that works for your moving schedule.
Even though listing agents do cost money, the charges usually come out of the home sale overall.
Getting the cash to pay for home repairs or improvements can be difficult, especially if you are already stretching your budget to move. Moving expenses can add up quickly – there are moving vehicles, hotels, and food to consider, plus the down payment and closing costs for your new home.
The information and materials provided on this website are intended for informational purposes only and should not be treated as an offer or solicitation of credit or any other product or service of Regional Finance or any other company. This website may contain links to websites controlled or offered by third parties. We have not reviewed all of the third-party sites linked to this website and are not responsible for the content, products, privacy policy, security, or practices of any linked third-party website. The inclusion of any third-party link does not imply any endorsement by Regional Finance of the linked third party, its website, or its product or services. Use of any third-party website is at your own risk.
References accessed on June 1, 2021:
Realtor.com – What is a Home Stager? Someone Who Makes Buyers Swoon
Zillow – How Much Does it Cost to Move?
Realtor.com – What is a Listing Agent? Why a Home Sale Hinges on Agent’s Expertise?
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