4 Home Selling Tips

You can sell faster and for more money than your neighbor. Here’s how.

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How can you sell your home faster and for more money than any other homes in your neighborhood? I’ve got four tips to share with you today that will help you do just that:

1. Landscaping and curb appeal. It’s important to update your landscaping, and curb appeal is huge. If buyers don’t like the outside of the home, they may never come in and see the inside. Trim your shrubs, get rid of weeds, and put a fresh layer of mulch down to make the landscaping look new again.

2. Consider new paint. Nothing will make a home feel brand new like new paint on the walls. In the grand scheme of things, it’s relatively inexpensive but can pay huge dividends when it’s time for buyers to make an offer. We have some great painters that our team works with and we can set you up with one that is fair and reasonably priced.

New paint makes a home feel brand new.

3. “Move out” and clear the home of clutter. If you are able to move out of your home to get it ready, you should. If you can’t, you should do all you can to make it look like you are moved out. This means getting rid of all the clutter in every single one of your rooms. The more things you have, the more clutter buyers feel. The more clutter there is, the smaller the home feels. If you can declutter well, the home will show well. Those type of homes get higher offers than most.

4. Price it right. To help price homes, we use a software that I don’t know any other company in the Bay Area is using. We are able to look at a ton of information, including data about whether homes that had a price change or multiple price changes sold for a higher amount than homes that sold at their list price. We found that a home that's priced correctly from the beginning sells quicker and for more money than the homes that reduce their price. A home that is priced correctly will net you more money on that bottom line.

If you have any questions or want any more tips, don’t hesitate to reach out and give me a call or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.

How Can You Save Money During the Selling Process?

When selling your house, there are a number of ways you can save money during the process.

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If you're selling your home, there are a number of ways you can save money before the sale.

One trend we see a lot now is buyers really scrutinizing homes during the inspection period. Sellers can save time and money by hiring an inspector of their own before selling. We call this a pre-inspection. This will help sellers find issues before buyers or their inspectors have the chance to find them and mitigate any surprises before buyers see them. With a pre-inspection, sellers can save money by making repairs on their own terms.

Get a pre-inspection so you can make repairs on your own terms, not the buyer's.

You can also save up to 50% of the cost by telling the inspector that you don't need a report, which can be time-consuming. Instead, just ask to walk through the property with the inspector so they can point out where issues might arise. No two inspectors are the same, but it's worth the investment.

If you have any more questions about saving money before selling your home, you can always call us or shoot me a text or email. We'd be happy to help!

Smart Home Improvements With the Best ROI

Did you know that it's actually the smaller changes to your home that will earn you the most money in resale value? Things like a new front door can actually provide a return of more than 100%.

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report. 

Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.

There are many small improvements you can make to your home that will improve its resale value.

Large-scale fixes and upgrades are unlikely to return their full cost to you when you sell your home. If you're anticipating selling your home, these small changes can provide up to a 100% return on investment. Not all will give you a 100% return, but they will help improve the market position of the property in relation to the competition.

For example, the national average cost to replace a steel front door is $1,230, which is the least-expensive project on the list and ranks highest on the payback scale with a 108% return on investment on average. In 43 of the 102 markets surveyed, Realtors say that a new front door will recoup more than 100% of its cost.

Small changes can provide more than 100% return on your investment.

Mid-range and high-end garage door replacement is another improvement expected to top 100% payback in multiple markets. The same goes for replacing windows and minor kitchen remodels.

Notice a pattern? With the exception of the kitchen remodel, these are all replacement jobs. Replacement jobs provide a much better payback than remodels or new additions to a home. First impressions are important, so the improvements that offer the greatest payback are the ones that are obvious to buyers when they see your house online or in person. This includes your front door and garage door, and possibly siding, too. This year, manufactured stone veneers are expected to recoup 92% of their cost on average across the nation.

Inside the home, kitchen remodeling still offers the most bang for your buck. The only remodeling job that breaks the top 10 in payback is a minor kitchen remodel, with a national average cost of about $19,000 and a national average return of 79.3%.

If you’d like any more information about home improvements or how to improve the value of your home, give us a call or send us an email today.

5 Ways to Get Your Home Sold for Top Dollar

If you’re looking to sell your home for the highest amount of money possible, you may be wondering which improvements will make the most difference in offer price. Today I’d like to share five improvements you must make to your home in order to sell it for top dollar:

1. Work on the landscaping. Weeds, dead plants and overgrown grass can negatively impact your curb appeal and potentially cost you a sale. Your lawn is going to be the first thing that potential buyers see when walking into your home, so be sure to keep it in as close to perfect condition as possible.

2. Be sure that the interior and exterior paint are in great condition. Paint is one of the most cosmetically appealing aspects of your home. Think about it this way: if you wanted to sell your car, and the paint was fading, would you expect a dealer to give you top dollar for it? Absolutely not.

3. Clean the floors and carpet. Cleaning or replacing your floors can make a big difference in the kind of offer you receive from a buyer.

4. Make sure your home is clean and clutter-free. I’m talking about having the home professionally cleaned from top to bottom. Nothing deters a buyer more than a dirty home because it tells the buyer that the home has not been well-maintained.

5. Use professional photography to market your home. I pay for professional photographers on all of my listings, but that’s not something that a seller will incur as a cost. I’ve seen million-dollar homes look completely unappealing with low-quality photos, so photographers are definitely a worthwhile investment. When you have buyers looking at your house every day online, you want to make sure that your home is being shown in the best possible light.

Nothing deters buyers more than a dirty home.

If you have any questions on this or anything else about selling your home for top dollar, give me a call to schedule a free consultation with me. I look forward to hearing from you!