How to Sell a House: 12 Must-Do Tasks to Prepare Your Home

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If you’ve never sold a house before it can be tricky to figure out what to do to get the ball rolling. There are a lot of steps you’ll need to take when selling a home and it’s important that you check them off one-by-one and know the best time to sell it before looking for a buyer.

Fortunately, we’re here to be your guide. Below we’ll list the 12 must-do tasks you need to know about to prepare your home for a sale.

1. Clean It Up

One of the first things you should do if you’re thinking about selling your house is to clean it thoroughly. However, you need to beyond just an everyday cleaning and ensure that every spot of your house sparkles and shines.

Be sure to do a deep cleaning and eliminate any grime, dust, and filth that may have piled up in your home over the course of time.

2. Get Rid of Clutter

While cleaning and sanitizing your home is helpful, you’ll also need to do plenty of organizing as well.

You won’t want to have a lot of clutter around your home when potential buyers come to check it out so you need to organize everything and ensure your house looks tidy and neat. Thoroughly organize storage cabinets, closets, and any other areas of your home that are too cluttered.

3. Depersonalize Your Home

To sell your home easily and quickly you need to make sure you depersonalize it a bit. You’ll want to start removing any items that make your home seem too personal, making it looks more like a blank slate again.

You should also reset any rooms that you’ve been using and revert them back to their originally intended purpose. Staging your home will make it easier for potential buyers to see themselves in it and will make it more likely that they’ll decide to buy.

4. Get a Storage Unit

Decluttering and depersonalizing your house can be difficult if you have a lot of personal belongings and furniture around.

While in the process of selling your home it may be a good idea to rent a storage unit. Keeping many of your belongings in storage will make it much easier to reset and stage your home and get it ready to show to buyers.

5. Don’t Forget the Smell

While cleaning your home is important it’s also a good idea to make sure it smells great as well. Work to eliminate any odors in your home and freshen and clean the air as much as possible.

Buying some air purifiers can be well worth it and will help you give a much better impression to home buyers when they come to view your house.

6. Make a Few Repairs

When getting ready to sell your home it’s also a good idea to make a few minor repairs and improvements.

If basic appliances, locks, doors, or any other essentials in your home aren’t working as they should it may be worth repairing them. You may also want to make some cosmetic improvements as well to ensure your home looks appealing.

7. Remove Anything You’ll Keep

While it should go without saying, you’ll also want to remove and replace anything in your home that you plan to keep when you move.

You may particularly want to remove anything that seems to be a permanent part of the house. This may include lamps, light fixtures, appliances, or any other items that you would like to take with you to your next home.

8. Improve Curb Appeal

Similarly to staging your house to give a great first impression, you also need to work on bolstering your home’s curb appeal. You should aim to make the front of your home and yard look amazing to ensure that buyers are impressed at the very first glance.

Improving curb appeal may mean doing some basic landscaping, keeping your grass trim and neat, adding some extra night lighting, and giving your home and front door a fresh paint job.

9. Consider Whether You Need a Real Estate Agent

While there are plenty of things you can do to improve your home, you’ll eventually need to start the process of putting it on the market. You’ll need to decide whether you’re going to try to sell the home yourself or if you want to work with a real estate agent.

While they’ll charge a commission, doing so can help make selling your home a much simpler process and they’ll often have plenty of deep knowledge about your local market as well.

Remember that selling a house involves significant costs. A major expense when you sell a property is the agent’s commission. Also, other fees may include inspection fees and closing fees. However, you can offset these fees when you choose to deal with a cash buyer like Cream City Home Buyers.

10. Get a Pre-Listing Inspection

Before listing your home to sell, it’s also a great idea to get a home inspection. But, how much does a pre-listing inspection cost? In general, this fee is the same as the buyer’s inspection, which ranges from USD$350 to USD$500 for a certified inspector carrying insurance.

Getting a pre-listing inspection can be beneficial since it can help you to understand the condition of your home and it will help you find out if there’s anything you can do to help raise its value before you sell. Buyers will also trust your listing more if your home has been inspected properly.

11. Take Professional Photos

Before you sell your home, you’ll need to do everything you can to prepare the listing ahead of time. It’s a great idea to hire a professional photographer to take photos and videos of your home.

The photos you include in your home listing can make a huge difference in how well your home sells once it’s on the market, so it’s important that you don’t try to do it yourself if you don’t have professional photography skills.

12. Decide Where You’ll List Your Home

If you want to sell your home quickly and effortlessly, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re listing your home in multiple places. Getting your home listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for your area is important but there are other great places to list a home for sale as well. Zillow, Trulia, Facebook, and Craigslist can all be helpful when selling your house.

You can list your house for sale by owner or FSBO on Craigslist, which is simple and free. Look for your city on the state page, and make a ‘real estate—for sale by owner’ listing. Other platforms offer this service for a few hundred dollars.

When listing your house for sale, it’s essential to know which details to highlight or include in the listing. Set a fair price for your property based on your market research. Brokers use the cost approach appraisal to yield the most accurate market value of the property. Another approach they commonly use is to compare the prices of similar properties or the sales comparison approach. Using the comparison approach is a convenient way of determining the worth of your residential property.

Additionally, you’ll also want to think carefully about the best time of year to sell a house to ensure your home gets plenty of attention once you put it on the market.

Learning How to Sell a House Quickly and Effortlessly

If you’re trying to discover how to sell a house fast, you need to take special care to follow the tips above. By preparing well you’ll have the best chance of selling your house quickly and with minimal headaches.

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