Which homes sell faster

Look at your home to see its shortcomings. Is it attractive, clean, and well-kept, or does it need maintenance that you need to complete?

It can be difficult to see the objectivity of your home since you have been living in it for a long time, so take advice from real estate professionals about how to make it show better. Plus, your driveway, exterior porches, and outer walls must be clean, too. Curb appeal is what lures buyers in, helps maintain their interest, and sets your home apart from the competition. Proximity To School: Education is king, at least for home buyers. Homes located near a school, especially one described by keywords like "top" or "best," Homes linked to good schools sell faster and at a premium price.

To a buyer, this phrase tells them they can move into this house on a Friday, put their belongings away over the weekend and go to work on Monday settled into their new home. But, buyers are looking for small defects in a house to have a reason to bargain. So it is important that your home not only be a move-in ready condition but be in impeccable condition for showings. Use Professional Pictures: Use a professional photographer and produce professional marketing materials with the high-quality photos.

Professional photos are essential in attracting more buyers and selling the home faster and at a better price. No one has ever complained about having too much closet space, so be sure to highlight the storage space available and show all the potential uses.

You can partially empty closets hint, remove seasonal clothing allowing the closets to give the illusion of having more space available. At a minimum, you should organize and declutter your closets, so they do not look cramped. With energy efficiency being a hot topic, upgrading or installing energy-efficient features can increase the appeal of your home to buyers.

From small updates like installing energy efficient light bulbs and a remote thermostat to larger updates like upgrading the insulation or putting in energy efficient windows, every energy efficient feature can be another plus in the mind of a buyer. Discover other ways you can make your home more energy efficient here. It is a common misconception that the listing price should start high and then lower as time goes on.

This method often increases time on market for multiple reasons. First, if the price is too high people will automatically rule it out. You do not want to discourage buyers with an unreasonable price tag.

An irrational price tag can also lead buyers and agents to avoid your listing because they are concerned you are not serious about selling or that you are unwilling to negotiate. Lastly, if an agent or buyer sees that the price has been lowered multiple times while the house is on the market, they can infer that you are desperate to sell.

This can lower their offer price even further. All of that being said, your home does not need to be the lowest priced home in the neighborhood to sell. If your house has differentiating factors from other homes nearby, use those as selling points for the additional cost. The verbiage you use when listing your home also plays an important role in its sale.

Language like move-in condition, beautiful, gorgeous, spacious, new and upgraded will peak a buyer's interest. Wording to avoid includes motivated buyers, must sell and other adjectives that make you seem desperate to sell. The purpose of your listing is to get the potential customers in the door of your home where you and your realtor can sell them on its features.

Read on to find out how to sell your house while getting the highest possible price within a reasonable time frame without losing your mind. You spent a great deal of time and effort to find the right one, saved up for your down payment and furniture, and created many memories. People generally have trouble keeping their emotions in check when it comes time to say goodbye.

Once you decide to sell your home, start thinking of yourself as a businessperson and salesperson rather than just the homeowner. Also, try to remember how you felt when you were shopping for that home. Most buyers will also be in an emotional state. So does it pay to hire an agent? A good agent generally has your best interests at heart. They will help you set a fair and competitive selling price for your home, increasing your odds of a quick sale.

An agent can also help tone down the emotion of the process by interacting with potential buyers and eliminating tire kickers who only want to look at your property but have no intention of making an offer. Your agent will also have more experience negotiating home sales, helping you get more money than you could on your own.

And if any problems crop up during the process—and they commonly do—an experienced professional will be there to handle them for you. Finally, agents are familiar with all the paperwork and pitfalls involved in real estate transactions and can help make sure the process goes smoothly.

After reading all this, should you really hire an agent? Only you can decide. There are people who sell their own homes successfully. Remember the comparative market analysis you or your agent did when you bought your home to determine a fair offering price? Buyers will do this for your home, too, so as a seller you should be one step ahead of them.

You may think your home is worth more, but remember to set a realistic price based on comparable homes in the area. In a survey conducted by the informational home sale website HomeLight. Any smart buyer will negotiate, and if you want to complete the sale, you may have to play ball. Most people want to list their homes at a price that will attract buyers while still leaving some breathing room for negotiations—the opposite of the underpricing strategy described above.

This may work, allowing the buyer to feel like they are getting good value while allowing you to get the amount of money you need from the sale. Believe it or not, there really is a right time to sell during the year. Winter, especially around the holidays, is typically a slow time of year for home sales. People are busy with social engagements, and the cold weather across much of the country makes it more appealing just to stay home.

Because fewer buyers are likely to be looking, it may take longer to sell your home, and you may not get as much money. You may be better off waiting.

Barring any mitigating circumstances that may force you to sell during the winter or holidays, consider listing when the weather begins to warm up. At the same time, there are so many poor photos of homes for sale that if you do a good job, it will set your listing apart and help generate extra interest. Good photos should be crisp and clear and taken during the day when there is plenty of natural light available.

Consider using a wide-angle lens if possible—this allows you to give potential buyers a better idea of what entire rooms look like. Ideally, hire a professional real estate photographer to get top quality results instead of just letting your agent take snapshots on a phone. Consider adding a video tour or degree view to further enhance your listing. This can be easily done with any smartphone.

You can certainly entice more potential buyers into walking through your doors for showings. You may even get more offers if you give them an introductory walk-through of your property. Your lender may have required you to acquire a homeowners insurance policy. You also want to make sure there are no obvious hazards at the property or that you take steps to mitigate them keeping the children of potential buyers away from your pool and getting your dog out of the house during showings, for example.

Think you can get away with hiding major problems with your property? You have three options to deal with any issues. Either fix the problem ahead of time, price the property below market value to account for it, or list the property at a normal price and offer the buyer a credit to fix the problem.