Selling Your Home Fast

A guide for selling your home using proven and effective tips that not only add value but also help you walk away with money in your pocket.

If your house is currently on the market, you know only too well the challenges facing sellers today. You need to sell your home fast and without breaking the bank. So how do you make your house stand out in the sea of homes for sale without completely giving it away? Here are some practical tips and ideas for showcasing your home while keeping it within your price point.

Curb-appeal is everything

Remember the old adage about first impressions...it's true! Think about it. The first thing a prospective buyer will see is the front of your home. You will want to give it the wow factor so when a buyer walks up, they are impressed before they even step foot in the house. Sprucing up the landscaping is one way to add curb appeal and bring value to your home that doesn't have to cost a lot of money. Some ideas to get you started include adding some color and different textures with flowers, shrubbery, rock landscapes, a tasteful water fountain and solar landscape lights.

Hire a good realtor

It really is important to have an experienced realtor in this market. Do your homework and find a realtor that has many years of experience and recent success in the marketplace. Some things to look for when hiring a realtor are:

• Great negotiating skills
• Impeccable organization
• Aggressive track record
• Good marketing skills
• A wide array of connections

Not enough can be said about decluttering! You want a potential buyer to be able to visualize themselves living in your home. If your house is cluttered with so much stuff that it screams: this is my house - how will a buyer ever see it as theirs? The best way to declutter is by renting a storage unit and filling it with all the non-essentials like toys, extra clothes, shoes, electronics, bulky items that take up a lot of space, books and anything that doesn't add value in the buyer's eyes.

Get out your paint brush

It is amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do. Start with the exterior of your home and work your way in. First, wash and paint the exterior of your home if needed. Even adding a new color to compliment an existing color can revitalize the exterior of your home. Then, step inside and consider repainting rooms. Even repainting the closets will make them look clean and new. Remember, when painting to keep the colors neutral. Bright and bold personalized colors tend to turn off potential buyers. Again, buyers find it hard to make it their own when you've made it your own favorite color.

Learn the basics of staging

Rather than hire a professional stager, consider reading up on how to stage your home yourself. Some ideas to get you started might include an update of the lighting and to neutralize colors of drapes, upholstery and accessories throughout the house. Also, create a focal point in the main room of your home. That focal point could be the fireplace or a sitting area. Another basic of staging is to depersonalize the house. Take out any items that are personal and meaningful just to you. For example, most or all of your family photographs, personal family heirlooms (only valuable to you) and nick knack items need to go.

Make needed repairs and updates

Nothing looks worse than walking into a house with dings and holes in the wall. It's an inexpensive and easy fix to patch drywall mishaps throughout your home and it adds infinite value. Another repair that makes a room shine is regrouting the bathroom and kitchen tiles. If grout is stained and chipping, look into this option to add new life to a tiled area. If you have outdated fixtures and appliances (especially in the kitchen and main living area) you will want to update them if your budget allows. Most prospective buyers like the newest and latest things. If they walk into a kitchen that needs a lot of updating, they may walk away rather than deal with it. Inexpensive updates that won't bust your budget may include replacing knobs, handles, light fixtures and refacing old cabinets and scratched up doors.

It's a tough sellers market out there but it is possible to sell your house fast without making price the only deciding factor. By taking the steps outlined here, you can put yourself in the best possible position to sell your home quickly.

Thank you to Tonia Roemer for this "Selling Your Home Fast" article.

Latest Home Selling Tip Articles:

How to Price a Home For Sale (NEW!) - A new season is on the horizon, and you believe the worst of the economic downturn is over, so it’s time to sell that house you’ve been living in the last several years. You know what you want to get out of it, and you think you know what your home is worth, but it’s important to understand how to price a home for sale...

Selling Your Home Fast - If your house is currently on the market, you know only too well the challenges facing sellers today. You need to sell your home fast and without breaking the bank. So how do you make your house stand out in the sea of homes for sale without completely giving it away? Here are some practical tips and ideas for showcasing your home while keeping it within your price point...

Staging Like an Expert - Selling your own home in a buyer’s market can be a cumbersome, confusing task indeed. However, with home prices plummeting, it’s almost impossible to think that you will take the real estate agent’s fee out of the profits – if there won’t be any. For even a $200,000 sale, that means a whopping $12,000 in realtor fees (with an average 6% commission)! There are other ways to maximize that type of investment to sell your own home...

Selling Your Own Home - There are no rules that say you can’t sell your home yourself. However, before attempting to do so you should be properly prepared. The major steps involved in getting the house ready prior to selling it are...

How to Sell a House - If you a ready to sell your first home, you may be wondering how to sell a house without paying a significant commission. Regardless of the current housing market, with a bit of knowledge you can sell your own home and realize thousands of dollars in savings. Please read on for our most common questions on how to sell a house...

More Tips on Selling your own Home - Check your home from top to bottom for signs of wear. Are the ceilings water stained, needing paint or, heaven forbid, drooping? Are any of the walls’ plaster chipped or in need of paint? Are all corner moldings properly tacked down? How about the lighting fixtures; are the cords in good repair? Are all bulbs in working condition? How is the flooring? Any squeaks when you walk across the floor or up or down the stairs? Is the linoleum, hard wood or tile in good condition? If you have carpeting is it clean? How are the exterior and interior doors looking? Are any of them in need of paint or in need of shimming...

How to Sell Your Home by Owner - So, you want to sell your home? You’d love to get every dollar possible from it, so you can put a nice down payment on your next residence and maybe even buy a new sofa or big screen TV. If you use a realtor, though, you’ll pay her at least seven percent of the selling price. Add in your portion of the finance charges from the bank on the loan, and you will likely cut up to ten percent off your profit. Imagine owing $150,000 and selling your home for $200,000. “Wow,” you think. “I’m going to have fifty grand for my down payment and moving expenses.” Then, you get the closing statement from the title company, only to find that you paid that sweet realtor $14,000 and dropped an additional $7,000 on closing and title costs. Suddenly, your 50k profit on selling your home turns into a paltry-looking $29,000...

Tips for Selling your Home Quickly - Change is inevitable and it can affect where you call home. You can buy your dream home one month, and then a few months or a couple of years later, a job transfer will require you to sell and buy a home in a different city with little time to spare. This experience happened to me personally, although I was on the other end of the experience. A homeowner in Las Vegas needed to sell his house in less than a month because his wife received a job offer that was too good to refuse in Chicago. His family of four was required to sell the house and pack to make the immediate move. These are the successful steps he followed after seeking advice from close friends in the real estate industry....

Four Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Your Own Home - Do you want to sell your house without using a real estate agent, but you’re not sure where to start? In the real estate business, the buzz word for a house that is for sale by owner is “FSBO”, pronounced (FIZZ-BO). Selling your home without a real estate agent can be done, and it can save you thousands of dollars. If you’re tired of dealing with real estate agents, and you want get started on the fast track to selling your own home, avoid the following four mistakes...

Other Real Estate Related Articles: