Probably the most important thing you can do to get your house sold, and sold quickly, is to price it right. That, along with having it absolutely clean, and it should be sold. No kidding.
Even if you plan to leave work undone for the next owners, so long as it is clean and priced appropriately, chances are good that it will sell in a relatively short time.
Over and over, agents tell me that sellers have an unrealistic idea of their home’s value. I get it. You’re emotionally attached. Your kids grew up there – you marked their rising heights on the wall in the closet, the pet turtle is buried out back and you planted the pink azalea the day your daughter was born.
However, your buyer doesn’t care. To them it’s a house, not a home. What you should want is for them to fall in love with (1) their vision of themselves living there – yes, they will renovate, and (2) the amazing price you’ve listed it for. Once those two items are checked off their list, they’ll write the contract.
I know this is true because we buy and sell houses every month. As an example, we recently finished renovating a house. The next day, we put it on the Multiple Listing Service and put a sign in the yard. Two days later, Listing Book (the local online resource for the public to view MLS listings) had 40 hits on the property, eight people tagged it as a favorite, and two days after that we received our first offer on the house. Why? It’s clean and priced $20,000 below any comps in the area.
Do you want to have your house for sale, or do you want to have it sold?
And, how do you know what the correct price should be?
Actually, you can list your home for any price you like. Some sellers use what they paid for the house, add what they’ve spent on improvements, then add an amount for profit. Some list based on what they need to pay off their mortgage balance, plus closing costs, plus the real estate agent commissions. But are those methods the right ones?
In my next Selling article, I’ll discuss better and more accurate options for pricing your home to sell.
For more and detailed information on selling your home, check out The Essential Handbook for Selling a Home.
