According to research, spring is a good time to consider selling your home. Blooming landscapes and green grass certainly improve a home’s curb appeal. In addition, many families will be looking to buy a home before the next school year begins.
We have recently listed our second home, and we are currently under contract. What have we learned in the process? A lot.
Home Selling is Humbling
When you open up your home for others to consider purchasing, it can be a very humbling experience. A good Realtor will tour your home and point out all the good, bad and the ugly that buyers will also notice. Suggestions will be made to remove the wallpaper you love or paint over bold wall colors. Precious items collected over the years will quickly be classified as clutter. Does it mean your personal touches are distasteful? No, but personal touches will make difficult for buyers to see themselves in your personal space.
A good Realtor will risk hurting your feelings by making suggestions that will improve your home’s appeal to buyers. Good agents know that the more neutral and depersonalized you make your home, the more a buyer can consider purchasing it from you. In addition, agents know neutral homes often generate higher purchase offers. Don’t believe an agent’s recommendations? Buyers will soon provide similar feedback after viewing your home.
Realtor Experience
As with most other areas of life, the internet has changed the real estate market. Buyers and sellers can be more educated about a local market due to websites such as Zillow.com, Truilo.com and Realtor.com. In addition, there are multiple alternate avenues to market and sell your home, but a good realtor can still offer a lot of value to a home sale.
Our agent listed our home at the price we requested, but she had the instinct that it would do better listed $8,000 less. After more than a dozen showings and no offers, we lowered our price to the agent’s recommendation. Within 24 hours of lowering the price, we had a list price offer. In addition, she utilized years of experience to negotiate the terms of the contract that worked well for us and the buyer.
Home Selling is Exhausting
While juggling normal everyday life, we had to keep our home clean and adjust our schedule to accommodate potential buyers in the hope that they would be the one to purchase our home. If you have kids and/or pets, the process of selling can be more difficult. Read about our tips here on selling a home while juggling kids and pets.
Are you buying a home? Check out some tips in this post here.
