One of the most important events in your life occurs when you make the decision to sell your home. Most people will not sell a home more than once or twice in a lifetime, so it can be a confusing and even intimidating experience. How can you make sure you sell it for the right price? How can you shorten the timeline of the sale? How do you handle negotiations with buyers? Should you hire a real estate agent or choose another option? These questions are just some of the ones that you will face when selling your home, and this is one of the reasons you should make sure to seek out home selling tips before entering into the sales process.
One important home selling tip is to know your area. The housing market can vary greatly from zip code to zip code. Understanding whether the homes in your area are selling as well as homes two miles away can help you in knowing whether the time is right to sell your property, as well as whether you will be able to sell your home for a price you are comfortable with.
Key factors to look at when assessing the market in your area include what other homes are selling for and how long homes are on the market. There are many valuable free tools such as Zillow and Trulia which can be used to help you better research what your unique local housing market looks like. Real estate agents can provide this info as well, but it is great to have these tools readily available to you free of charge.
Speaking of real estate agents, another home selling tip is to seriously consider whether it makes sense to use a real estate agent for your home sale. Real estate agents can be valuable in that if you are unfamiliar with the various steps involved in selling your home, they can educate you and guide you along the way. And they can also provide the aforementioned local market research. They will also be able to provide marketing support in the form of web site listings, signage, and more.
But they will also charge for their services, and that can eat into the amount of profit you are hoping to make from your sale. That fact might make selling your home yourself a more appealing option. Of course, that assumes you have the time to market the home, show it to prospective buyers, and negotiate the paperwork and nuances of the sales process. Or you may want to consider selling your home to a home buyer on an as-is basis. This approach will avoid the costs of an agent but will also save you the time involved in selling the home to an individual yourself. It also offers the benefits of not requiring any sort of repairs to the home’s interior or exterior, and not needing to negotiate over who pays closing costs or other considerations that often come with a traditional home sale.
If selling your home quickly is important to you, then another valuable home selling tip is to consider an as-is sale. Since you are not showing your home to many different prospective buyers, you will not need to worry about staging the home. And since you are selling as-is, you will not have to wait for contractors to make various repairs in order to get a buyer to agree to a purchase. This will save you several weeks, and that is before you add in the time savings that come from not waiting for that perfect buyer who wants your home to find it. Waiting for a buyer could take weeks in a good situation, and months in a bad one.
One last home selling tip is to know exactly what you want or need to sell the home for. What you list your home will very likely not be what you wind up selling it for, unless you are enjoying an exceptionally strong housing market. You will likely have an end buyer make an offer that is below what you have asked, and you will have to rely on negotiations to get to your desired number. Understanding not only the amount you want, but the process it will take to get you there is critical.
These home selling tips can help take the confusion out of selling your home. For more help with understanding your local housing market, what type of sale is best for your needs, whether a real estate agent is right for you, how to price your home, and more, contact FasterHouse today. We can put years of buying homes in St. Louis to work for you, providing the guidance you need to make an educated decision. Just call 314-926-0660 or fill out this form.
