3 Tips to Make It Easier to Get Your House Ready to Sell

When it’s time to get your house ready to sell, stress can go off the charts! Make your life easier by focusing on these 3 steps that will help smooth the way.

Congratulations! You’ve decided to sell your house. If you’re like many sellers, your first step is to get mentally prepared for what can feel like battle. You look around your home, filled with all your favorite things, pets and people, and foresee weeks of work… countless decisions… boxes and more boxes… cleaning, sorting, storing… repairs and painting. Ugh!

Yes, it’s true that packing up and moving is a big job, but it IS possible to make the whole process easier, less costly, and with much less overwhelm than you may imagine.

Assemble your personal home-selling team

Real estate is part business, part emotion, and if you want to get the best price for your property, faster, treat it like the major financial transaction that it is, and get qualified advisors on your side.

Sellers who are getting the best results with the fewest hassles have three key advisors on their side:

• Real Estate Agent: Choose someone who knows your neighborhood, is a good negotiator, and provides the level of communication and marketing know-how that you feel comfortable with.
• Staging Professional: If you’re in a competitive market like the Triangle, North Carolina, it’s critical to have a home stager who’ll make sure your home matches (or surpasses) your competition.
• Real Estate Photographer: Because first impressions and many buying decisions today are being made online, you’ll need a professional real estate photographer in order to be competitive.

Consult with your experts BEFORE you get your house ready to sell

Most homeowners have got the message: if you want to sell your home quickly, and at a better price, you have to make your home look as nice as possible.

But you may be surprised at how many things that are commonly thought of as “must-do’s” for getting a home ready, end up not being necessary in a particular home—and which essentials people ignore.

Depending on your property, comparable listings in your area, and creative staging solutions, it’s not unusual for us to surprise sellers with a punch list that looks very different (often shorter!), than they expected. We save their time and money by helping them:

• Select the optimal paint colors to highlight the best features of their home and its lighting.
• Avoid costly updates that aren’t going to give them the highest return on investment (ROI).
• Select decorative items they already have and position them to create the most desirable impression among buyers.
• Make connections to reputable vendors, already vetted and able to get the job done right the first time.

These are among the many advantages of having a staging professional on your team. Your real estate agent will certainly have valuable advice to offer, too, but staging is a discipline all its own. Pros (like us!) study trends, statistics, and how buyers are making decisions—we live and breathe this narrow piece of the real estate industry pie.

Start shifting the language you use to “property” vs. “home/house”

Whether you’ve lived under your roof for one year or 40, the building you’ve called home is full of memories that make up your life. It’s natural to feel a connection to this place!

But once you’ve decided to leave and get your house ready to sell, switching to think of it as property—a piece of real estate you own—and less as home helps loosen the emotional ties that bind you to it. And that makes the experience far less stressful.

That shift in perspective will also help you see the tasks ahead—from prepping for sale to buyer negotiations—the way your real estate team does: how can we get the best ROI from this real estate transaction?

We’ve seen it over and over: clients who shift their emotional attachment from past to future, are more relaxed about their move, think more clearly, look happier, and find their new home more quickly. You can do it too!

So, if you want to get your house ready to sell, with less stress—and avoid spending money on changes or repairs that won’t generate a return—start with these 3 essential steps. And be sure to give us a call to help create your best first impression.