There is no more aggravating time in your life than those days, weeks, and months that your home sits on the market without a buyer. At this point, chances are you've missed the best selling time, which is usually the first 4-6 weeks, and you are feeling really antsy about unloading your mortgage. However, you are at a loss as to what you can do to generate new interest in your home. Below are some simple suggestions that will help you sell your home more quickly and pull you out of your real estate funk.
1. Be proactive! Although there is no way to know the reasons a buyer as not yet snatched up your home, focusing on your own misery won't sell your home. Since the best time to sell your house is past, you need to make the best of each and every showing. All you need is one person who falls in love with your home at first sight, and remember that each showing could be your last.
2. Eliminate the clutter. As a seller, you can never underestimate the value of "wide open spaces" in your home. A room stuffed with oversized furniture that makes you feel claustrophobic will certainly feel small to your prospective buyer. In order to you're your home feel more open, get rid of as much clutter as you can. This might include large but unnecessary pieces of furniture, storage items stashed in your closet, excessive art or photos on the walls, etc. Pack up the wrapping paper and get it out of your closet. Take down the line of frames that shows your child at every age from birth to high school graduation. By minimizing the personal items you have in your home, your buyers are more likely to focus on the home itself and how they could adjust the home to fit their lifestyle.
3. Update wallpaper, paint, and flooring. Although every seller might not be faced with this tri-fecta, if the wall-coverings and flooring in your home is outdated, it is a big issue. Very few buyers in the current market are interested in wallpaper at all. Certainly, wallpaper may be tastefully done, but as long as your walls won't crumble and crack when your remove the wallpaper, you might need to put your personal attachment aside and take it down. Even if you don't have the curse of wallpaper, simply repainting your home with a neutral color can really give it an updated and clean feeling, whether or not your home is already clean. Finally, although replacing flooring is more expensive, outdated or worn carpeting is a good way to spend that extra money you have lying around. Flooring always produces a high return, and may greatly increase the appeal of your home.
4. Clean, clean, clean. If you are living in squalor, or even semi-squalor, buyers are likely to think that you don't take care of anything in your home. On the flip side, when buyers walk into a clean home, their assumption is that you maintain every part of your home. Where real estate is concerned, perception is reality. No matter how filthy your house was yesterday when your kids tracked mud in from the backyard and your dog had diarrhea through the kitchen and dining room, the buyer only sees what it looks like now. Remember, perception is reality. Buyers believe that what they see is what they get.
5. Focus on curb appeal. In real estate as well as business, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The New York Times reports, good landscaping can add 15-20% to your sale price. On the other hand, unappealing landscaping can subtract as much as 10%. With a growing number of buyers shopping online, the pictures prospective buyers see on the website may mean the difference between an in-person visit and a click of the mouse... on to the next available home. Make sure that your first impression is both positive and lasting.
6. "Stage" your home. Arranging, or staging, your home is very important. Focus your arrangements so that you are showcasing your home's best features, like fireplaces or bay windows. Then, concentrate on open walkways so your prospective buyers can easily move from room to room. Finally, while part of staging includes your home's arrangement, you should also consider not just what your buyers see, but what might appeal to their other senses as well. For example, rather than cuing up Led Zeppelin, try some Kenny G. Before the buyer arrives, bake some cookies and leave a plate on the counter for them to enjoy. Now not only have you appealed to their eyes with a clean, de-cluttered home, but you have also appealed to their sense of hearing with soft music and their sense of smell and taste with your baked treat. The only thing left to do is accept their hefty offer.
After reading these tips, the only thing left to do is put them into practice. Don't continue to lose time by sitting around and waiting. The most important thing you can do to generate interest is... do something! Refuse to let another buyer slip through the tracks by applying these suggestions to your own home. Best of luck on many happy returns.
