11 Ways To Get Your Home Ready For The Market

Getting your home ready to sell is challenging. Here are 11 ways to get your home ready for the market.

Follow these 11 steps before listing your home for sale to get the highest price.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Our 11 ways to get your home ready for the market work anywhere in the U.S.

• Researching your local housing market before listing helps you to start with the best price.

• Avoid the typical mistakes that “For Sale By Owner” (FSBO) sellers make.

• Only an experienced Realtor who knows your local market can help you with the ideal price for a faster sale.

• Learn how to clean and declutter your home for sale.

• How to lighten, brighten and repair your home before listing.

• Learn home staging tips buyers will like.

• Learn how to depersonalize your home for buyers.

• The benefits of hiring a professional photographer and videographer.

11 Ways To Get Your Home Ready For The Market

1. Research Your Local Housing Market

Before a new product goes on sale, the seller must conduct a market analysis to know how to set the price. Too low means lost profits. Too high means no sale.

Selling your home is not any different from selling a new product. Apply sound business and marketing principles to get the best price.

You can begin by researching your local housing market at the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) website. There you will find all the local listings of homes for sale.

Find the homes similar to yours and in your neighborhood to see which ones recently sold and at what prices. Recently sold homes give you a better insight into the current housing market than the ones still trying to sell.

Comparing homes means similarity. If you own a two-story ranch house or a Tudor you need to find similar recently sold size and style homes. Other important features include age, number of bedrooms/bathrooms, lot size, and amenities like gourmet kitchen or smart home hi-tech systems.

Want to get a quick reliable estimate of your home’s current market value? Read our recent blog post: “The Pros and Cons of Online Property Value Calculator”. We include a Free Home Valuation Calculator for you to use.

2. Find an Experienced Listing Agent

Selling your home yourself is tough. Self-selling homes are known as “For Sale By Owner” (FSBO). Who earns a low reputation in the real estate sales industry. That’s because often an FSBO doesn’t know what it’s doing. Poor pricing, bad marketing, inexperienced negotiator, and ignorance of the laws are characteristics found in most FSBOs.

Many real estate agents stay clear of FSBOs because their owners are hard to deal with. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) in 2021 “87% of buyers hired an agent to buy their home, with 90% of sellers hiring an agent to sell their home”.

Since so many buyers are working with an agent to find a home why scare off 87% of your buyers?

Make sure you find an experienced listing agent who knows your neighborhood and keeps up with your local housing market and new real estate marketing trends.

Read our blog post about the importance of “Why You Need to Use an Experienced California Real Estate Agent”.

SoCal Lifestyle Realty only offers experienced Realtors who know every San Diego County city and neighborhood to research recently similar sold homes to recommend the best price. Contact us now before listing your home to list at the best price in the greater San Diego area.

3. Deep Clean Your Home

First impressions are everything. Don’t let dirty floors, foul smells, or dusty surfaces create a bad impression on potential buyers.

Before listing and showing your home give your home a deep clean. This includes:

• Mopping floors;

• Scrubbing bathrooms;

• Cleaning toilets;

• Wiping all surfaces;

• Cleaning carpets and rugs; and

• Cleaning curtains and blinds.

Hire a professional cleaning service with steam equipment, pressure hoses for the exterior; and floor polishing.

4. Declutter Your Home

Every year you lived in your home usually adds clutter. Important documents and notes you never filed, old books you read a long time ago, and Knick knacks you bought and never used. Disorganized closets, overflowing storage areas, and forgotten junk you need to de-clutter.

5. Lighten Up Your Home Interior

Buy lots of light bulbs. Turn on every lamp. Besides turning on light fixtures, let all the natural light into your rooms. Open the blinds, curtains, and shades. Brighter rooms attract buyers.

6. Paint the Walls

This is the perfect time to repaint your rooms. Start by painting over colors too bright or unnatural with neutral colors. If your rooms are bright orange or dark green re-paint them.

Use neutral colors like white, light beige, light gray, and “greige” wall colors. These shades make the room brighter, bigger, and more welcoming.

A coat of fresh paint also helps to cover each room’s imperfections, stains, and fading. Fresh paint conveys a new slate to potential buyers.

7. Hire a Handyperson

An experienced handyperson should inspect your entire home to spot everything needing fixing. For instance, fixing:

• Broken appliances;

• Cracks in the walls;

• Hardware;

• Leaky faucets;

• Locks;

• Running toilets; and

• Squeaky doors.

Fix these before listing your home for sale. Otherwise, buyers will think your home is in poor condition which is a turn-off.

Read our blog post about: “Benefits of Home Inspection in California”.

8. Stage Your Home

Similar to placing props on stage for a theatre, staging your home will help it to sell faster. Luckily, staging your home’s interior is easy and affordable.

Curb appeal is similar to staging your interior. This involves sprucing up your exterior so that when a potential buyer drives by it appeals. The first thing a buyer sees is the outside of your home. Make it shine! Cut the grass often, landscape the yard, and get rid of any clutter like bicycles, toys, and junk.

If your exterior walls need paint, add a fresh coat. Repair the roof and gutters. Make the front door look inviting.

Always have your home “ready to show” on short notice because you never know when a buyer wants to see it. Make your beds, put away your dishes, and hide the clutter. It’s annoying but necessary.

To learn more, read our blog post titled: “Tips for Staging Your San Diego Home When Selling”.

9. Depersonalize Your Home

Creating a warm welcoming home means hiding your personal items. For example, put away your bulletin boards, fridge magnets, framed photos, trophies, photo albums, and toys. The same goes for pet toys, food and water dishes, and bedding.

Leave nice non-personalized artwork on the walls and in rooms to make the rooms look inviting.

Also, adding special touches like a new welcome mat, fresh flowers, and accent pillows to welcome buyers.

Leave your home before a showing. It gives your buyers the freedom to inspect rooms without feeling like they are snooping around. It also allows them to freely ask the real estate agent questions. Before leaving, turn on all the lights, let the sunshine in, and use an air spray in each room.

10. Rent a Storage Unit

If your home lacks sufficient storage space, rent a storage unit. Decluttering and home staging requires storing old furniture and personal belongings out of sight.

Renting a self-storage unit nearby gives you a temporary space to store your extra stuff when showing and staging your home.

11. Hire a Professional Photographer and Videographer

Most buyers search for a new home online. That’s why it is critical to include high-quality photos of your staged home with your online listing. First impressions for buyers are everything. Unless you own or can rent first-class photo and lighting equipment, hire a professional photographer.

Don’t let buyers overlook your home online because your competitors have better photos. That’s right, you are competing with other sellers. Look at it as a beauty contest. The internet and social media showcasing competing homes with photos reward the most appealing ones.

Also, hire a professional videographer to produce high-quality videos of your home from top to bottom, inside and outside. These will be used with your listing and social media promotions.

As your Realtor, ask us for recommendations of the best professional photographers and videographers who know how to showcase a home for sale. The best high-quality photos and videos of your clean and staged home to win the beauty contest and bring in more buyers.

11 Ways To Get Your Home Ready For The Market – Conclusion

Let’s summarize the 11 ways to get your home ready for the market.

1. Researching your local housing market to see how your home stands up with similar recently sold homes;

2. Find an experienced listing Realtor who knows your local housing market to list at the best price;

3. Fully clean your home to get rid of dirt, stains, and bad smells;

4. Decluttering your home to hide the personal items and make your home inviting to buyers;

5. Light up your home’s interior to make your home brighter and more appealing;

6. Paint the interior walls to make your home look fresh and neutral;

7. Hire a handyperson to fix everything broken so your home appears in tip-top condition;

8. Staging your home to look welcoming;

9. Depersonalizing your home into a warm welcoming home by hiding your personal items;

10. Rent a nearby storage unit if you don’t have enough storage space to hide your clutter and personal items; and

11. Hiring a professional photographer and videographer to take high-quality photos and videos for your online listing to attract more buyers.

Want to Sell Your San Diego Home?

If you like this blog post and are thinking of selling your home in San Diego County, read our other informative blog posts. For example, read our post: “Why Do Homes Fail To Sell?”.

Our SoCal Lifestyle Realtors are here to answer your questions and help you to list and sell your San Diego County home fast at the best price.

Contact us today to learn other ways to prepare your home for sale in the greater San Diego area.

Steven Rich, MBA – Guest Blogger