Hello this is Marcie Billen with Rüya Team Realty and Keller Williams Mulinix here in Norman, Oklahoma. Are you thinking about selling your house? I’ll outline how to get started so you can walk away with the most money possible. And here is our home selling checklist on how you can start preparing your home to sell today!
See HOW MUCH your home is worth!
The Best Offense is a Good Defense
I work with both buyers and sellers. So, to start, let me ask you: what are buyers looking for in a home? Condition is definitely a factor for buyers and buyers notice maintenance issues. Remember, they’ve been scouring the internet just like you trying to figure out how to buy a home. And they know if maintenance issues are noticeable, there are probably a lot of things that they aren’t seeing. So, put the buyer at ease and take care of these things before you even put your house on the market. Examples of these kinds of items are cleaning out your gutters, repairing holes in walls, scraping and painting any exposed wood outdoors, even ensuring all your plugs and switches match.
Pre-Listing Inspections
I highly recommend getting a pre-inspection on your home, if possible. This is a pre-home selling inspection. That just means hiring a home inspector to give you an itemized list and they should also help you prioritize the things on that list. Fixing even a few items will help the prospective homebuyers feel more confident in your home.
Paint
There are a few things that you can do to help a buyer make a decision on your home. Paint is one of the first things I ask people to update on their homes. I mean think about it how do you feel as you step into a freshly painted home? Does it feel new? Does it feel clean? It’s a super simple step and it can even help diminish certain smells in the home that you may not notice. Buyers are super grateful for a freshly painted home, it really makes them feel good about the house.
Floors
Floors are a big sticking point for buyers as well. Carpet gets worn out pretty fast and it gets pretty dirty, quite honestly. Many buyers don’t like carpet, and if you do have carpet in your home it’s ideal that it’s been replaced or it is recently new, meaning it’s clean and there are no or very few worn spots. Depending on your neighborhood and the price of your house, I typically recommend, if you’re going to replace your floors, maybe look into some hard surface flooring. This is going to help your home sell faster. Hard surface meaning vinyl, if that’s applicable in your neighborhood, or engineered hardwood, maybe actual hardwood or maybe tile, just depending on your house.
Kitchens & Bathrooms
I think we can all agree that the kitchen is a really important space in the home. Small changes in the kitchen can add a big WOW to the space. By small changes, I mean you can paint the cabinets, if needed, or even change light fixtures, or just changing out faucets and knobs. Of course the most important thing about the kitchen is that you deep clean it.
The master bath is also really important for a homeowner because typically the person that’s using this space, the master bathroom, also pays the bills. So really, it needs to be attractive. Again small changes can make a big difference. Many of the changes I often recommend are changes to the countertops, maybe the floor, but even more simply, I would suggest changing light fixtures. This can really help that space feel updated.
Roofs
The last thing I often suggest to homeowners preparing to sell, is that they get their roof checked out. In Oklahoma, our roofs just don’t last very long. Homebuyers here in Oklahoma are concerned with the roof and having a new roof or even one that has regular regular maintenance can mean better offers and more of them. After maintenance and updates, we dive into staging and marketing so stay tuned for Part 2 of our Home Seller Series!
Do you have more questions about what it takes to sell your home? Schedule a call with me and I would be happy to see how I can help!
Need to get in touch?
Marcie Billen
My Typical Working Hours: 11 AM-7 PM CST M-F
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