Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Selling Your Home? How to Get the Price You Deserve

By Judy Anderson


You want to sell your home, but you do not want to sell it for less than what it is worth. This is a problem experienced by many homeowners today, but you are not alone. Many people are selling their homes today for one reason or another. Some are moving out of the area for a job change and need to find a home in their new area. Others are struggling to make payments and need out of their loans. Still others may have growing families that are no longer comfortable in their small starter homes. Whatever the case may be for you, there are some things to keep in mind before you throw the "for sale" sign out in the lawn. Making a mistake could cost you thousands of dollars, so take the steps with caution.

You have to look at the market and determine whether it is turning in favor of buyers or sellers before you put your home on the market. A "buyer's market" is more beneficial to the buyer, since there are many homes on the market and far fewer buyers to put their money on the line. Buyers have the upper hand because they have their choice of many properties, many of which will be priced much lower than the seller deserves to receive for them. The "seller's market" is in favor of the seller, since there are more buyers out there looking and fewer properties on the market. Sellers can get much higher prices in a seller's market, so you want to catch that upswing in prices before you place your own home on the market. Unfortunately, the market right now is in favor of buyers, so you have to educate yourself on how things are selling in this market. Ideally, you will have patience and understand that there are many other homes in the area for sale and yours may not find a buyer overnight. You will also have to study the prices being asked by similar homes to yours in the same area, determining a competitive price for your own home. Do not rip yourself off by going too cheap, but do not price yourself out of the current market, either.

Start by looking at the homes that are currently for sale in your area, or which have sold in the recent past. You want to identify properties that are similar to your own, which means they have the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms and are about the same size with the same amount of land. The designs of the homes should be similar to yours as well. Go to a realtor open house to get a look inside these homes, making sure they are in about the same state of repair as your own home. This will also give you information about the prices being asked for these homes if they do compare well to your own. You now have all the information needed to compare your own home and set a reasonable price that should do well in this market.

Market your property accordingly. Market your property online, in news ads, online and even through word of mouth. Driving traffic to your property is half the battle. The more traffic, the more potential buyers. Even if your traffic does not generate solid leads, you can be sure that the word will be passed from person to person and surely a buyer will come along eventually.

Clean homes that have been cared for over the years sell far easier than homes that are a mess or falling down. Do what you can to fix up your place, fixing things that will look bad to buyers and staging it to look clean and attractive. You want buyers to walk in and visualize their own families living in that space. They cannot do that if your clutter is everywhere or the walls are marked with crayons.




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