Hellobee Boards

DH and I knew we wanted to move last spring, so we met with our realtor in January.

Part of his service as our selling agent was a consultation with a stager. After our realtor told us what he thought our house was worth as-is, she came in and made suggestions of things we could improve/how we should arrange things in order to increase the value. We took her checklist back to the realtor and he told us which ones we should really consider investing in and which weren't as important.

(her checklist was SERIOUSLY overwhelming! so it was good to have him say not to worry about everything...like new matching blinds for every window)

That way we knew from a professional the touch ups we were making would make an actual difference, they were prioritized so we knew where our budget was best used, and we were able to work on them for 2-3 months before he brought in the photographer for our listing photos.

I'd ask around for realtors, and not feel like you have to be locked in on the first meeting. We used a guy I randomly found in a newspaper after I fired the first two people I met when I bought my first place. We've now used him three times (buying, selling, and buying again) and are really happy. Word of mouth is probably the best way to choose.

Our house was listed in March. We had three showings the day after it listed, and had a full price offer within 10 days.

I would only do small projects before meeting with the realtor though (the obvious stuff like patching holes and decluttering and fixing broken things).

DH thought we'd have to repaint the whole house because he didn't think it was "neutral" (he grew up with white walls, I had non-white neutrals in most rooms). But the colors in 75% of the house the stager and realtor said were neutral enough. So we ended up not having to hire someone to do the rest of it and saved a lot of money since we waited.

Definitely work on the projects now. Usually the realtor's want to get things listed ASAP so it's easier to have everything ready first.
We used recommendations for realtors and were very happy with them! A good realtor should be able to tell you the best time to list in order to move by June. I'd probably say you'd want to have all your projects done and set up appointments with realtors by early February. The entire process once an offer is received can take a couple months and you want to figure it may take some time to get an offer. I would guess listing in March but it totally depends on the housing market where you are.

Don't fix everything - if you can find a trusted realtor, have them come over now to figure out what is actually worth fixing. Some things you may think are important wont actually increase your sale speed or value -- others could have a huge impact.

I would definitely talk to a realtor before I start in on projects. There were a couple in the house we just saw that I thought were must dues, and my realtor said in the current market we didn't need to do anything. Our house sold for asking price, and I thought asking price was a bit high, so I'm glad we didn't invest any money in those items. We are in he had a realtor we knew and trusted (a childhood friend of mine) so we didn't have to find one, but I think it is worth finding the realtor first.