How Do I Sell My House? 7 Tips For First-Time Home Sellers

Real estate is one of the most solid assets that you can buy. Owning the home you live in is one of the simplest and most practical ways to get into real estate. 

Selling a home can feel complicated and nerve-wracking if you’ve never done it before. With the right advice, you can sell your home at a good price as quickly as possible.  

Learn these tips for home sellers so you can use them in your favor.  

Tip 1: Price Your Home Right

If you’re hoping to sell your home fast, pricing is everything. The price must be attractive enough to get buyers and still priced to turn a profit. 

First-time home selling requires you to do some research so you know how much you can expect to get for your house. This research will help you get a return on investment (ROI) in today’s housing market. 

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The average home sells for roughly $429,000 in the United States today. What goes into pricing your home effectively?

Get a Professional Home Appraisal

Understanding your home value is an essential part of pricing your home for the market. As a first-time home seller, you need a professional home appraisal to know how much your home is worth.

You’ll kick yourself for pricing your home so low that you don’t capitalize on your home’s actual value. You will also kick yourself if you overvalue your home and price yourself out of the market. 

Hire a professional that can give you a property appraisal for your house. Work with these pros, whether it’s your first time selling a house or you’re a seasoned real estate investor that owns many properties. 

A professional home appraisal will include things like:

  • The geographic location or neighborhood
  • Age and condition of the home
  • Its features and fixtures
  • Materials that the home is made from
  • Number of bedrooms and bathrooms

Home appraisers will give you the most accurate estimation of all these details. A professional home appraisal will cost about $300-$700 today. 

Understand How Much Money You Need

Consider your business and personal needs whenever pricing your house.

For one, you should always seek to turn a profit with your home sale whenever possible. Many people also sell their homes for financial emergencies. At that point, turning a profit is less important than liquidity. 

Perhaps you’re looking to buy a vacation home or other real estate investment property with the money from the sale. This means you must know how much you need for your down payment. 

Set an amount and make sure your home sale price reflects that. 

Incentivize Buyers to Act Quickly

The selling process is easier when buyers are attracted to your property. People will always be more attracted when they feel that they’re getting a deal. 

Consider pricing your home a little bit less than the maximum that you can get. Well-informed buyers will know that the home is excellently priced and will be likely to make you an offer and will be more willing to move forward. 

Tip 2: Home Staging for Professional Photographs

You can get 1% to 5% more from your home with some professional home staging. It’s harder to sell a home when people are looking at empty rooms. Once you stage the house, make sure also to get professional photos done. 

Consider the Benefits of Home Staging

Home stagers are professionals who can offer you insight into the real estate market. They will decorate and style the home in a way that buyers resonate with. 

Some benefits of home staging include:

  • It helps people imagine living in your home
  • Home staging creates an emotional connection with buyers
  • It leads to better media for your home listing
  • The perceived value of the home increases
  • Staging can help you sell your home faster

It’s easier to get your money’s worth from a house when you invest in home staging

Hire Professional Stagers and Photographers

Working with professionals is the best way to get value from your home staging. They understand the art and intricacy of this work, which bodes well for the outcome. 

Home stagers can help you execute interior design strategies that sell homes. A professional photographer can help you capture it so that your home listing is effective. Both professionals have an eye for detail that you’ll be glad to use. 

Market Your Listing

You can only capitalize on a home staging if it is properly marketed. This means getting people out to your open house and enough search engine optimization (SEO) and social media traction to your listings. 

The more visibility your listing has, the easier it’ll be to get it off the market fast. 

Tip 3: Consider the Timing of Your Sale

Timing is everything in business. This is especially true in real estate. Your timing for entering the market can be the difference between several thousand dollars. 

There are a few different areas of timing that you should consider when selling a home. 

Understand the State of Real Estate

First, get to know the current real estate market. You should know whether it’s a buyer’s, seller’s, or renter’s market and why. Studying the current market will help you apply strategy and jump on potential leads. 

Find out the current interest rate and whether or not people are eager to purchase homes right now. Having a detailed understanding of the real estate market will be especially helpful for negotiating. 

Understand the Timing of Your Life

Consider your reason for selling and how it will affect your personal, professional, and financial life moving forward. 

Perhaps you’re looking to downsize your home and need to quickly get some cash in your bank account to make the transition. You might also be relocating for a job or looking to purchase a bigger home. 

All of these factors are important to consider when you’re ready to put your home on the market. 

Consider Other Recent Sales

Timing can also work in your favor if a home comparable to yours recently sold. Whenever there’s a valuable home on the market, you can guarantee that it has several interested buyers. Once that home gets purchased, those other buyers are still likely in the market for a home. 

This makes the time after a quality home goes off the market the perfect time to list yours. You’re more likely to drum up interest since several hungry buyers are in purchase mode and won’t want to miss out on the next big deal. 

Tip 4: Know Your Local Market

Understanding your local real estate market will also help you during the process. Real estate is arguably the most hyper-local form of business there is. 

There are some key points you need to think about:

Consider the State of Local Real Estate

Some areas are always hotter than others when you consider local real estate. Know whether you live in a city where real estate is rising and in demand. If real estate is cold where you live, you may need to be willing to sweeten the pot to attract potential buyers. 

Pull data on exactly how many residential properties of your kind are available in your city and use this information to your advantage. 

Explore Your Neighborhood

Your research should be thorough, all the way down to understanding the neighborhood your property is part of. Neighborhoods are actually one of the biggest selling points for a home. 

Some of the attributes that might attract you to a neighborhood include:

  • Proximity to attractions
  • Safety and low crime rate
  • Walkability
  • Healthy property values
  • Lush greenery and plant life
  • Beautiful architecture and a variety of home types
  • Easy access and well-made streets

Knowing the attributes and selling points of the neighborhood will help you with advertising and speaking about the property to prospective buyers. 

Market it With Locals in Mind

Understanding the local area is especially important when it comes to marketing the property. You need to not only understand local area property values and other price variables. Make sure that you also understand the culture of the city or town, along with its main attractions and features. 

The more you can speak the language of a local area, the easier you can sell it. Local knowledge will also help you market the home in the best sites and publications to attract locals. 

Tip 5: Put Together Open Houses

Open houses can make or break your chances of selling a home. Put some thought into your open house so that you come away with the best outcome. 

Before anything, professionally clean the home and make sure it’s free of clutter. Get the house as close to move-ready as possible so that you can seamlessly have people in and out of your home, allowing them to examine every nook and cranny. 

Professionally Set Up the Open House

Hire professionals to set up your open house. They know the top things that buyers look for and can highlight the home’s most important features. 

This is particularly important if you’ve just made some major upgrades to your home that can help you sell it. 

Have Information Ready

Put together some information that will teach an eager buyer all about your home. Visitors will get an exhaustive breakdown of the key specifications, along with quick access to an application to make an offer. Include a 3D tour or multimedia they can check out on their own time. 

You should also put together a mixture of hard copies and digital media. 

Hire a Real Estate Agent to Run Your Open House

Professional real estate agents will know the selling points and details of the property better than anyone and can help communicate them for you. 

These professionals are also skilled at moving negotiations ahead and can speed up the process. Staff a team of real estate agents to run your open house and communicate with potential buyers. 

Tip 6: Consider Your Closing Expenses

Closing costs are always a major part of any home transaction. The more you know about these expenses upfront, the better. 

Here are some points you should consider when handling the seller’s closing costs:

Hire a Lawyer and Accountant

Real estate professionals can help paint the most accurate picture of your closing expenses. A real estate lawyer will help keep the process organized and on task. 

Combining the services of a certified public accountant (CPA) and a real estate attorney assures that every detail is accounted for. 

Keep Thorough Records

Closing time is when the most important business is done. Keep thorough records for yourself and the buyer. This makes the entire process transparent and can protect your legal and business interests. 

Create both digital and hard copies of the most important documents. 

Address Your Closing Diligently

The closing process is also the time you will least want to make mistakes. Handle the process with the care and attention to detail that it requires. 

In addition to hiring professionals, always thoroughly read and examine any important records. Consider whether you want to handle the closing costs yourself or split them with your buyer. This is often one of the biggest areas of negotiation during a sale. 

Tip 7: Consider an All-Cash offer

Finally, consider accepting a cash offer for your home. This is often the best way to get a quick sale while making sure you’re compensated to your liking. 

There are plenty of companies that purchase homes for cash. iBuyer.com is among the most experienced, fair, and detail-oriented that you will find. The company provides speedy, obligation-free quote offers in minutes. 

They can match you with serious buyers and save you plenty of time, effort, and energy. 

The Best Tips for Home Sellers

These tips for home sellers will help you get the best results. Having the right information will get you started. Once you see how possible it is to sell your home, you’re likely to feel excited and motivated to do so. 

From there, the only thing left to do is reach out to some pros that can help you.

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