We are getting ready to put our house up for sale, give me your top tips if you've been through this process (bonus points if you did it FSBO.) Our market in our area right now is crazy, there is a lack of houses so bidding wars are happening like crazy. We want to take advantage of this!
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@LuLu Mom: declutter!! We rented a storage unit and filled it up!
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@Mamaof2: I'm working on that now! My parents have kindly offered us their upstairs storage (empty nesters for the win) so I plan on taking over a TON of stuff.
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Move out? lol. With kids and a hot market, showings are back to back to back...... save yourself the hassle of having to clean on your way out every time? Good luck, and have fun.....and hopefully it's over quick!
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get good pictures..... Ask your realtor to hire a pro photographer and dont let them just snap pics with their cell phone.
I wrote this a couple months ago and we just closed on our house last week
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/house-on-market-slow-to-show
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@LuLu Mom: Do you know where you're moving to? Our real estate market is insane right now. And when we saw what our neighbor's house went for we seriously considered selling. But, where would we go? Home prices are over inflated in our whole city, so yes, we'd make money selling our house, but we'd pay way too much for whatever house we bought, so what was the point. Just something to consider!
Decluttering so the rooms like big, bright, and airy is the biggest thing. And if you have a dog, consider a doggy day care because showings can sometimes be last minute and if you're at work, it's hard to figure out what to do with the damn dog
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@Chillybear: We aren't using a realtor, but i have a good friend who does photography and we were going to see if we could pay her to take photos for us!
@Truth Bombs: This is very true (and the same case here too!) We are planning on actually renting a year, as we are just starting the process of buying land to build so we won't have to buy the inflated house prices! We decided because of where the market is right now, it's worth selling and renting a condo/townhouse while we build, even with the hassle of moving twice, the amount we are potentially going to make is worth it.
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If you are thinking about selling the home yourselves, my #1 tip would be to have a good lawyer!
Having set plans for where to go if your house sells and closes very quickly would be my #2. Painting walls (refreshing painting), deep cleaning and declutter are all important too, but if your housing market is hotttttt they won't be as important as they are in a cooler market.
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Staging and a professional photographer is worth every penny even though it feels painful at the time.
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Absolutely pro pics. I can tell in an instant when we are looking online. And make sure the photos actually show how the house goes. A bunch of the FSBO ones I see have like four pictures of the front door and two random interior photos. Makes me think the rest isn't photo worthy.
And yes to decluttering. Thin out the closets too so it doesn't look like you don't have enough closet space.
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@LuLu Mom: Ahh gotcha, then it does make sense to capitalize on the hot market. I missed that part about you selling FSBO. If you go that route I agree with @yoursilverlining: to definitely have a good real estate attorney. And I would look in to how much money it would really save you since you are now out of pocket for the attorney and the pro pics, and the staging, and the marketing. I'd rather just pay the 6% commission and not have to manage the process myself. Especially if you expect a possible bidding war I would want a professional to help manage that process.
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@sunnyday: we had a hot market the first house we sold, and we spent a week cleaning, then sent the dogs to in-laws, and took a week long beach trip, so the house was available for unlimited showings. Had 3 offers to choose from when we got back.
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@Truth Bombs: We've actually weighted the cost and we will be saving about 10K doing it ourselves even with the our lawyer fees, it is worth it in our minds to keep that money in pocket. We won't be paying for staging and plan on doing only online marketing to start, honestly neighbors put a sign out and a day later had 3 offers, I don't think marketing will be an issue. Thank you for your ideas! @yoursilverlining: Thank you, we need to get on the "where we are going to go" plan in place, that's my goal for this week to start looking for a townhouse.
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make your house look as move-in ready/ project-free as possible
declutter+ clean+ depersonalize+stage
Other: pro pics, brag sheet on upgrades
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@LuLu Mom: one of the things our realtor told us was once your house hits MLS it gets filtered through Trulia and Zillow within 24 hrs plus other sites pull it quickly too. As FSBO do you have access to MLS?
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We sold our house in one day last month!
Declutter, don't cook anything stinky, send pets away, be open for showings any time. It's hard (we have 2 kids) but you want to be accommodating to buyers.
Good luck!
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Agree on pro pics and declutter. One tip our realtor gave us that we thought was totally ridiculous but actually helped was to paint the interiors of the closets. I know it sounds SO stupid, but it's amazing how much it cleaned up and brightened them, which made them look bigger. Our house sold in 3 days 2 years ago.
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@LuLu Mom: we are about 2 months ahead of you! We sold to take advantage of a crazy market, are renting for the year, and are in the process of building our forever home.
We are having the rental deep cleaned right now, and the movers come tomorrow.We used a realtor because I didn't have time to manage a sale. The professional photos were great. We cleaned and decluttered, but did not de-personalize.
Good luck - thus far, our experience has been great and I hope yours is too!
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@MrsLonghorn: this post made me smile...it's possible!!!
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i agree, declutter!!
also, make sure photos are nice and bright (lighten in photoshop if need be)...try to catch rooms with the sun coming in.
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I personally think that a realtor is going to make you so much more money that they're usually worth it. Failing that, I would stage the crap out of it (professionally, ideally), hire someone to clean it, and then have an open house on a weekend and hope for a lot of good offers then.
Also, if it were me, I would put some money into cosmetic stuff. I live in a very hot market, and in my neighborhood, houses that have been cosmetically flipped go for about 100k more. We're talking landscaping, interior painting, maybe exterior. Maybe 10-20k of work, and it seriously nets people 100k. I just bought my house unflipped, and I've considered residing, painting, landscaping, and then listing it for way more than I bought it. At the very least, you ought to get the house professionally cleaned inside and out, touch up paint, and landscaped.
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@sarac: Thanks for the suggestions, i don't think we will go this far. Our house is already landscaped beautifully (the owner before us did landscaping as a business) and in our situation our house is more of a starter home and I just don't think it would ever go for 100K more and the 10-20K into it wouldn't make enough of a bump to our bottom line.
We do plan on having a cleaning company come in and deep clean beforehand, so i'll be sure to mark that down as a for sure. We already did the carpets with our carpet cleaner and my husband is replacing the tile in our bathrooms to give it an updated feel. so there is a little cosmetic stuff being done.
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I would look for someone who does real estate photography vs. a portrait photographer who happens to have a wide angle lens.
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