Hi! I’m Marie Billen with Rüya Realty and Keller Williams Mulinix here in Norman, Oklahoma. And this is Part 2 of How to Prepare your House for Sale. Ater reviewing Preparing your House to Sell – Part 1, you’ve learned about doing upgrades and repairs – now, let’s discuss the strategy to actually get your house sold!
You can also download our handy home selling checklist here: https://oklahomarealestatepro.com/home-selling-checklist/
One of the first questions that you’re going to need to ask yourself is: “Can you live in your house as you’re selling it? Or do you need to go ahead and move out?” Maybe you can purchase a new house before you sell your house, maybe you can’t. This is a question that you need to go to your financial advisor with or you can talk to a local lender as well.
Understanding your options for financing and your hard-earned cash can make this whole process much smoother and less stressful for you. I would start this conversation long before you actually think of beginning to prepare your house for sale. This is so you can adequately prepare your finances and come up with strategy that’s gonna save you the most money in getting into a new house.
Staging
Another critical piece of this process is staging. You’ll need to intentionally stage your house so buyers can imagine themselves living in the space. Here are three of my top recommendations for staging:
1) Remove all personal (sentimental) items from the house. This includes photos and it includes religious items. So when you remove photos and religious items from your house, you’re helping the buyer see where their stuff’s going to go. Where their picture is going to go on the wall or on this table. You’re gonna see where all of their religious items are gonna go, if they have those. This helps them really put themselves in your house. And you want people to be able to imagine themselves living in your house, right?
2) This is a big one and it’s something I run into a lot. You need to remove all towels while you’re doing showings and while you’re taking photos. What’s the reasoning for the towel thing?
Well, if you think about it from the buyer’s perspective, it’s kind of gross, right? Like when you have towels out that you’ve used that morning and they still look wet. Or you’ve washed our hands on them. Maybe they’re a little bit ratty and you don’t even notice. It just doesn’t look great, also it takes people’s eyes away from the actual room. So like in the bathroom they see towels that are hanging (especially if they’re a little bit crooked) on the wall, then they may not see the room for what it actually is. And we want to help them to do that, right?
3) The last thing is large pieces of furniture. A good rule of thumb is, in any given room you want to remove one large piece of furniture. In the master bedroom I often recommend removing one of the dressers, or the only dresser if there is one in there. The reason for this is your furniture is probably amazing and that’s fantastic, but the buyer needs to see the space, not your beautiful piece of furniture. All of this staging helps you set up to get your marketing materials done.
Marketing
What are marketing materials? Professional photos, probably video, maybe some 3D shots, and maybe even drone shots, just depending on your property. I don’t always choose to do all of these, but a combination of these items works to get as many eyes as you can in your house. Why do you need professional photos? Professional photos help buyers want to look more closely at your house. This is going to result in buyers actually stepping into your house and will result in more offers for you.
All of these things fall under strategy – as you can see it can take some days, maybe weeks, maybe months, depending on your house to get your house ready to go on the market. If it’s not ready, photos aren’t taken, videos not shot, your house doesn’t have the repairs done, you don’t have the house inspection, you’re going to have less people looking at your house and you’re going to have less offers on the table. The reason for this is that your house gets dramatically less views online when it’s not fully prepared to go on the market.
Having your house fully ready and presentable to go on the market: repairs, inspections; those things are done. Your house is staged attractively, photos are taken, video is shot, all of these things are done – this means more buyers that look at your house online and more that actually step into your house versus the competition, and it’s going mean more buyers that are actually putting an offer on the table for you to take a look at.
Getting your house ready to go on the market is a process, but ultimately it’s a process that’s going to result in you getting more money in your pocket. Stay tuned for Part 3 when we go over the contract process and negotiations and check out our FREE Home Seller Checklist to help you get started today!
Have more questions about selling your home? Maybe I can answer them for you. Send me an email, text, or call!
