How to Get Real Estate Advice for Selling Your Home
Are you wondering how to get real estate advice for selling your home? 10 Tips for maximizing profit potential known as home equity are here whether you live in Lakewood Colorado, the Denver metro area, or anywhere in the United States.
Selling your first home to move up to a larger home, downsize, or move to a different city can present mixed emotions. While you may be excited to start life in another home, you may be leaving behind memories of pets, children, and other life-changing firsts in your life.
Getting cold feet is part of making significant decisions in life. So many what-ifs can exist. Did I choose the right major in college? Should I have taken this job instead of the other?
These ten real estate advice tips from realtor Sam Wilson will help you maximize the money you receive when selling your home. You will also find tips to prepare for the emotional aspects of selling your home in Lakewood Colorado, or anywhere in the United States, and be ready for the transition to your next great adventure.
1 Be Ready for the Emotions of Letting Go
How to get real estate advice for selling your home includes the idea of letting go. Your home may be a reflection of your interests and your personal style.
Realize that things—like the generations of family photos hanging on your wall—that are sentimental to you are not sentimental to home buyers. Maybe you purchased the family home from your parents, and you have years of growing up memories tied into height measurements in magic marker written on a wall in the basement.
Take photos of the memorable aspects of the house you are selling to preserve the memories. Then remove all personal items so that prospective homebuyers can see themselves—not you—living in the home.
See yourself in your next home. Start the search for your next home before you put your home on the market so that you are excited about life after selling your home.
More information about selling your home in Lakewood Colorado is HERE.
2 Hire the Right Realtor: Standard vs. Cut-Rate Commission Rates
Hiring the right realtor is one of the most critical actions you can take to avoid home seller remorse. Real estate commissions are an area where home sellers and home buyers can be penny-wise and pound-foolish, especially if you are selling a home or buying a home in a competitive real estate market like Lakewood Colorado.
Choosing the wrong realtor or pitting agents against each other for a low real estate commission may cost you money instead of maximizing the equity you take from selling your home. Cut-rate commissions mean home sellers receive less attention from a realtor who has to be available to more home sellers to generate a living.
Hiring a realtor in Lakewood Colorado, who offers a standard commission rate is usually the best course of action to ensure that your financial interests are protected. For more on hiring a realtor, get a copy of our FREE report with the ten questions you should ask when Hiring a Real Estate Agent.
3 Understand Competitive Market Analysis: Days on the Market Matter
How to get honest real estate advice for selling your home includes working with a realtor who will be honest with you about pricing your home. Realtors desperate to gain a home listing may purposely inflate the recommendation for your home sales price to get your business versus a realtor who offers an honest and competitive market analysis.
Days on the market is a critical factor in the real estate business. The number of days a home spends on the market directly affects the sales price of the house. Days on the market can indicate how buyers react to the listing price of the home and the property.
For more on pricing your home in Lakewood Colorado, read our blog post: Overpriced House? How to Make an Offer On An Overpriced Home.
4 Get Your House Ready to Market
When thinking about real estate advice for selling your home, think neutral. Neutral tones in a home in Lakewood Colorado may be boring to you, but they sell.
To get your house ready to market, set aside your personal preferences and sense of ownership. It’s natural to want to make your home yours, but the house must appeal to strangers when selling a home.
Make sure your house is clean and clutter-free. Consider a fresh neutral coat of paint throughout the house. If carpets and flooring are worn or dated, consider replacing the flooring to create a great first impression.
5 Use a Pre-Listing Home Inspection to Your Advantage
A home inspection is a normal part of buying a home. However, home sellers can request a professional home inspection before putting their home on the market. Taking this step provides sellers with practical real estate advice about the condition of a home. The benefit of selling a home after obtaining a pre-listing home inspection is to have more control over potential repairs to strengthen the real estate negotiating process.
A pre-listing inspection focuses on home systems’ working conditions like heating and cooling, plumbing, electrical, roof, home structure, etc. Having this information avoids unexpected surprises in the middle of a contract moving ahead toward a closing.
The cost of a home inspection can range between $350-600 for a qualified home inspector. The price can vary by location and size of the home. A pre-listing home inspection can reinforce the sales price of the house if everything is in good order.
For more tips on home inspections, get a copy of our FREE Printable Home Inspection Checklist.
6 How to Sell a Not-So-Perfect House
If you discover that you have a not-so-perfect house through a pre-listing home inspection or being aware of other concerns, it’s better to disclose this information to potential home buyers. A real estate professional can offer advice about the effect of repairs on the home’s sale price.
The benefit of being transparent about home repair concerns is that a home can be offered for sale as-is. An as-is status lets home buyers know that the home’s sale price has taken into consideration monies needed to make necessary repairs and supports truthful marketing.
Find more tips in our article, How to Sell a House that Needs Repairs.
7 Make Your Home Available for Showings
The more available you can make your home for showing to potential buyers, the faster it may sell. How to get real estate advice for selling your home may include the suggestion of taking a weekend or a week away if possible when your home first becomes available on the real estate market. You can relax knowing that your home will be available to all interested buyers without experiencing disruptions.
A home has the most significant opportunity to sell in the first 7-14 days when competitively priced. Home sellers can support the process by saying yes to home showings. If pets live in the home, remove all signs of pets and take them with you for showings.
Read more in our article, Selling Your Home With Pets.
8 How to Win Real Estate Negotiations
An experienced realtor never hesitates to negotiate. Real estate negotiating skills are essential to getting the most equity out of your home. You’ll know whether you chose the right realtor when disagreements about price or home repairs arise. A realtor will either fight for you—walk away from a real estate deal, or convince you to give in to unreasonable demands.
New or inexperienced real estate agents can make the mistake of negotiating to the death that can kill a real estate deal. Focusing on win-win solutions offers a better opportunity for home sellers and buyers to feel like they are receiving a fair value.
Part of how to hire a realtor includes reviewing a competitive market analysis based on facts. When your realtor suggests a market price based on the price of similar homes in your area, average time on the market, square footage, rooms, improvements, and other essential factors, you can be confident that the price of your home is based on market price, not the price you would like to receive for your home.
Learning what a home buyer and a home seller needs—not the reason for selling or buying—from a housing transaction is the best way to close a deal. A simple question is whether there are any terms the seller needs or any terms the buyer needs to arrive at a win-win situation.
9 Start Planning Your Move
The best way to move forward when selling your home is to find your next home or at least the area where you want to live as soon as you get ready to put your home on the market. Knowing where you will move reduces the stress of selling a home.
As you ready your home for the market, you can donate or give away items that you don’t need or plan to take to your next home. Having less stuff in your home can make it easy to pack up and move when the date arrives.
10 Don’t Go It Alone (Hire a Realtor)
As you can see, if you try to sell your home on your own and lack negotiation skills, it can be easy to lose out on getting the most equity out of your home when selling. Real estate statistics from the National Association of Realtors confirm that FSBO (for sale by owner homes) garner significantly lower prices.
While you may think you are avoiding real estate commission fees, you may also be sacrificing the money you can make when selling your house. For homes sold with a realtor, the median selling price was $250,000—that is $60 to $90,000 more than the typical sales price of a for sale by owner home.
Contact Sam Wilson for How to Get Real Estate Advice for Selling Your Home in Lakewood CO
Thinking about Buying or Selling a Home?
Are you thinking about buying a home in Lakewood Colorado, or the Denver Metro Area? Get expert real estate advice when house hunting for homes for sale in Lakewood CO, Jefferson County, and the Denver metro area. Work with a buyer’s agent on the Sam Wilson Home Selling Team. If you are thinking of buying or selling a home, we make you a priority and share our expertise to make the home buying or selling process as stress-free as possible.
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The Sam Wilson Home Selling Team specializes in homes in Lakewood CO, and Jefferson County Colorado, including Arvada, Aspen Park, Conifer, Edgewater, Evergreen, Genesee, Golden, Idledale, Indian Hills, Ken Caryl, Kittredge, Lakeside, Lakewood, Littleton, Morrison, Mountain View, West Pleasant View, and Wheat Ridge.
© 2021 Sam Wilson All Rights Reserved. Articles by Pamela D Wilson
