Are you thinking about selling your home? Has someone approached you about seller financing the home? Is this an option that you need to know more about? Working with a real estate agent can help you avoid costly mistakes when selling your home. He or she can help you learn about seller financing and determine if it would be a good option for you to consider. My real estate agent helped me sell my home to a wonderful family that didn't have credit that was established enough to take out a traditional mortgage. Visit my site to find out what we looked for to determine if this was a wise decision for us to make.
It's no surprise that you want to get as much for your home as you can when it comes time to put it up for sale. However, it's not out of the ordinary for homeowners to lose out on thousands of dollars simply because of a few things they overlooked during the sale. Here are a few tips that can help you get top dollar for your home.
Don't Get Too Personal
The same personal effects that give your home its personality may wind up turning off some buyers. After all, you want them to visual themselves living there – having your own personal stuff lying around can easily shatter that illusion.
Personal effects such as family photos, keepsakes and memorabilia should be put away on open house day. In the meantime, you can maximize your chances of a successful sale through home staging, which involves arranging your furniture so that it accentuates all of the positive attributes of your home.
Maximize Your Home's Lighting
Brightening up your home by manipulating your home's lighting can help draw in prospective buyers. In addition to upping the wattage of the light bulbs in your home, you should also ditch those dark-colored drapes, swap your darker lampshades for lighter-colored ones and trim nearby bushes, branches and hedges so that more light filters into your home.
No Pets, Please
You might love Fido or Fifi, but there's no guarantee that prospective buyers will share that love. Pets can be a turn-off for some home buyers who equate energetic furballs with clutter and uncleanliness. So when it comes time for the open house tour, you may want to leave your pets with a friend or send them to a pet hotel for the day.
Resist the Urge for a Mammoth Makeover
Completely overhauling your bathroom or kitchen might seem like a good idea at first, but taking on such a major home improvement project prior to putting your home on the market could prove costly in the long run. After all, there's no guarantee that you'll recoup the costs of your major makeover from any sales proceeds you get.
Instead, focus on smaller and easier-to-handle modifications that can be done cheaply and quickly. These include giving your walls a fresh coat of paint, buying new curtains, cleaning up bathroom tile grout and replacing aging cabinet hardware, for instance.
Know Thy Agents
Your real estate agent can play a major role in a successful sale, so it's important to consider who you hire to help sell your home. An ideal agent is one who knows his or her way around the multiple listing services (MLS), has a deep understanding of the neighborhood, and knows what it takes to make your home stand out to prospective buyers.
You should also make sure your agent uses online listings (with pictures and video footage) and other innovative tools to best market your home. Hiring an agent who isn't on the ball when it comes to selling your home can easily leave your home to languish in the listings.
Always Keep Up Appearances
When selling your home, it's important to keep it spotless at all times, since a buyer could want a tour of your home on short notice. With this in mind, make sure not to leave dirty dishes and linens lying around. Don't neglect other cleaning tasks like vacuuming and dusting, since doing so could leave you off guard when a buyer shows up unexpectedly.
Keep Your Closets Half-Empty
If a prospective buyer decides to look inside your closets, what they'll want to see is the potential for adequate storage. A packed closet suggests clutter, while a half-empty and neatly organized one not only demonstrates how the storage space works but also invites potential for how they'll be able to use it.
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