If you’re due to sell your house soon, it can be overwhelming to keep track of all the tasks surrounding the sale.
From undergoing a thorough interior inspection to taking photos of your house, it always feels like there are at least a dozen things to accomplish in your pre-sales checklist.
Having said that, you should be aware that in today’s economy, the ratio of sellers to buyers is disproportionately high. Sellers have the upper hand in terms of negotiation power because of the heightened housing demand in Australia and around the world.
That said, buyers are also fairly picky—especially with an asset as personal as a house. If your property is not properly maintained or if you fail to secure some crucial reports or documents, then you could be sitting on your property for a long, long time.
If you want to capitalise on this demand without wasting your time, you’ve come to the right place. This pre-listing checklist will give you a rundown of things you ought to know before putting your house on the market for people to view and potentially buy.
Let’s jump right into this checklist.
Get Your Interior in Order
The first thing you want to do is to inspect and freshen up your home’s interior. This includes all rooms, including the bedrooms, living room, bathroom, kitchen, and dining room.
During your inspection, note any signs of wear and tear and think of ways to address them. Do your walls and ceiling have cracks or peeled paint? Does the floor or carpets have any stubborn stains? Is there clutter in your attic or stock room that has been sitting there for years?
Ensure that your space is aesthetically pleasing and something that home buyers will look forward to moving in. While you don’t have to undergo a massive-scale renovation, doing some tidying up is a respectable thing to do.
Here are some specific things you should add to your interior cleanup checklist:
- Dust all surfaces
- Retouch the ceilings, floors, and walls
- Vacuum carpets and rugs
- Clean windows and mirrors
- Wipe down countertops and appliances
- Polish hardware
- Disinfect high-touch surfaces
- Declutter closets and cabinets
- Freshen the air
Cleaning your space also increases the property value and can give you more negotiation room, which can make you earn more cash overall.
Furthermore, you also have to ensure that all your stuff has been removed before you put your house out in the public. You can choose to move them to your new home, sell them, or donate them.
If you want to dispose of them, you can contact rubbish removal experts like Absolute Domestics to remove your items in an environmentally friendly and professional manner.
Deal With Your Exterior
Your home’s exterior and lawn sets the tone for a buyer’s visit. If it’s messy and unkempt, you’re making it harder to convince buyers to feel that the house is a worthwhile purchase.
Conversely, if it looks good, you can more easily proceed with the deal and both walk away happy.
To ensure a happy ending for both parties, take some time to clean up your exterior. In particular, do the following things:
- Enhance curb appeal
- Repair visible damages in the fencing
- Add a coat of paint to the exterior
- Clean the windows
- Illuminate your exterior with outdoor lights
- Declutter any personal items outdoors
- Add decorations around your doorway
- Ensure that pathways are clean and safe
- Inspect the roof and gutter for debris
By making your outside look nice, you’ll make your place more inviting and spacious. This can make buyers more inclined to make a purchasing decision.
Address Issues That Need Repair
From your first inspection, you’ll probably come across parts of your home that aren’t working as intended. Light bulbs may flicker, the tap may not be strong, and so on.
Before selling your house in the market, try to address these issues. You may have to test these components yourself to ensure that they’re working properly.
Here are common things around the home that may need repair:
- Ventilation problems in the A/C system
- Faulty wiring
- Plumbing issues like leaks
- Malfunctioning lights and light fixtures
- Broken appliances
- Damaged fences and gates
- Cracks in the flooring, driveway or walkway
- Peels and holes in the walls
- Loose roof shingles or broken doors
If you come across any of these structural problems, address them as soon as you can. Or at the very least inform your potential buyers about these problems. This way, there won’t be any surprises for your buyers.
Photograph Your Home
A good way to get buyers excited about your home is by taking some good photos of the place. A professional photoshoot with strategic lighting, staging, and post-processing can make all the difference in catching a buyer’s attention.
Here are some things you should do when photographing:
- Hire a professional photographer (this will make things a lot smoother)
- Use natural lighting and highlight architectural key points
- Take a picture of the outside of the house and use it as the listing highlight
- Ensure that the photos accurately portray your house
- Take shots of each room and the outside space
- Edit and retouch photos to make it pop out more
- Get digital copies of the photos
When you’re done, you can use these photos as part of your listing.
Document Organisation
Typically, the most difficult part of selling a house is obtaining the right documentation for it.
These documents vary depending on the type of property and where you’re selling it from, but generally, these are the things you have to be able to show and make copies of:
- Original sales contract (if you bought the house)
- Deed of the house
- Preliminary title check
- Tax records and mortgage statement
- Home appraisal reports
- Homeowners’ insurance policy documents
- Homeowners association documents
- Property survey
- Insurance
- Proof of sale document
- Disclosure forms
- Closing statement
By having all these documents on hand, you can proceed with transferring the ownership of your home to the next person.
If the process of obtaining these documents seems overwhelming to you, then it’s a good idea to hire a real estate agent to help you procure and organise these documents more easily.
Set The Price Then Advertise
You need to come up with a reasonable price range to attract buyers for your house while still maximising your profit potential. Look at the prices set by neighbouring houses and determine a suitable listing price for your property based on market rates.
Don’t set your price too low, though. Buyers will likely attempt to negotiate, so leave some room and have a last price ready to go when it comes down to it.
Once you’ve picked a suitable price range, it’s time to utilise various marketing channels to advertise your house with the photos you’ve taken early on.
When preparing your listing, be sure to keep these in mind for the best chance of conversion:
- Showcase the strengths of your property through picture and text
- Highlight the value proposition of your house against the competitors
- Adjust your advertising strategy if the market isn’t responding the way you want it to
- Advertise in multiple listing websites, social media websites, and physically, if possible
By doing these, you can increase your chance of securing a suitable buyer and getting a good deal for your house.
Good luck selling your property!
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto: https://www.pexels.com/photo/thoughtful-couple-writing-in-notebook-while-moving-house-4246012/
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