With increasing interest rates, the housing market has turned buyers market now. Higher interest cost means that there are more sellers than buyers looking for their next transaction. So it is far more important to take extra care while selling the house than a couple of years ago.
Following these steps will make sure that you get more buyers interested in your property than others in your area. You can even sell and rent back, if you have a buyer but no where to go yet.
1. The first and most important step is to start viewing the house, not your home, but a product that needs to be marketed. This will be difficult thing to do initially especially if you have lived here for a while and have memories attached to it. This may take some time, but to get the best possible price for your house, this is an important step.
2. Get your house inspected by a professional surveyor. This only needs to be of preliminary nature and not thorough. You just want to ensure that there arent any unpleasant surprises for the later part of selling process, and prepare if there are any. This step is important because buyers will have an upper hand in negotiation if such things are discovered by their own survey of the house, they may even pull out of the deal completely. Surveyors signed document will demonstrate the care you have taken of your house, instilling confidence among the estate agents or Realtor as well as the buyer.
3. It is important to prepare your house. You need to be objective here stand back and see it from the point of neutrality. Would you buy this house? You have lived here for some time, so you may be forgiven for being partial. Invite your friends around, get your neighbors opinion. Ask your estate agent for suggestions on what you can do to make the house more sell able. Go around other properties in your area that are being sold pretending as a buyer and make notes of their strong points. It is best to check out your competitors at this stage. Any enhancement of your house at this house does not need to be expensive.
4. If you make the effort of ensuring that your house stands out better than other similar properties in the area than buyer will pick your property. Ensure that your house gives fresh and clean look. A thorough coat of neutral paint or wallpaper, clean carpets, tidy garden and other basics like that can do the trick. Severance of any emotional attachments you achieved in the first step will help you to prepare the house for others to appreciate. It is always best to go with neutral decor over any strong personal tastes.
5. Lots of people prefer not to do any DIY around the house. If you are an enthusiast and have some unfinished projects, make sure they are all complete. People prefer their new house to be as much maintenance free as possible for the next 2 or 3 years. So tidy up those loose cables and finish off the garden shed you started last year.
6. Consider depersonalization of your house. You should have only a few displayed family pictures because if wherever you look you see your familys memorabilia then buyers find it hard to visualize themselves living there. People display all sorts of things like trophies, grannys needlework or baseball bats etc they should all be in moderation.
From experience we know that if you take above steps then you will stand a better chance of getting to potential buyers final list. Good luck.
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