If you’re ready to put your home on the market, you probably have a price in mind, and you’ve probably chosen your price to allow for negotiations. Before making a definite decision regarding the price, there are a number of ways to ensure you’ve chosen the right figure. You don’t want to set the price too low and decrease your potential profit, but you don’t want to price your home right out of the market either. In today’s competitive market, pricing your home to sell means pricing your home competitively, so don’t set your mind on a price before taking the following into consideration.

Advice From Your Realtor

Your Realtor is your best source of advice regarding the listing price of your home. Although many people already have a price in mind before making an appointment to meet with a Realtor, the realty professional you choose can advise you on whether or not the price you have in mind is reasonable. A Realtor has exclusive access to information regarding recently sold homes in your area that are comparable to your home. Comparisons enable a Realtor to formulate a selling price that can make your home a popular choice in a competitive market.

Search and Compare

Besides taking advice from your Realtor on the fair market value of your home, pick up a recent edition of your local real estate guide. Look for homes in your area that are comparable to your home. Take note of listing prices, and consider the prices of homes that have sold. Keep in mind that because a home is marked as sold, the listing price and the selling price are two completely different numbers. Although you can’t speculate on whether or not the homes listed will sell for the prices the owners are seeking, looking at recent comparable listings will give you an idea of where to set your price.

Extra Incentives

When pricing your home to sell in a competitive market, consider the extra incentives you can include with your home to make it more appealing to potential buyers. A higher priced home should include appliances and window treatments, and any other extra incentives are always a plus. No matter the price range of your home, making it more appealing to potential buyers by including optional extras might be the edge that will set your home apart from the rest when pricing your home to sell in a competitive market.

Getting your home ready to sell is not easy. You may have lived in this house for years, and this means you are emotionally attached to it. There is the spot on the carpet where your youngest dropped his first ice cream cone. In the garage you have the place where you marked your children’s growth each year. These wonderful family memories are part of what makes a house a home, but they can be a real problem for you when it comes time to sell. Why is this? Because the people looking to buy your home want to see it as their home, not yours.

The first thing you must do to sell your home is to make it anonymous. What does this mean? Making a home anonymous means making it a home that all of your potential buyers can see themselves in. To get an idea of how to do this visit a model home in a newly built community. What you will find is a beautiful home with furnishings and decor but nothing personal. There will be no family pictures on the walls, no children’s drawings on the fridge, and nothing to indicate who lives there. When you walk into the house, you can picture your family moving right it.

This is how your home needs to look. Depersonalizing your home is an important part of the staging process. Your family treasures and trinkets are wonderful things, but they need to be removed while you are selling your home. Start by getting your hands on a sturdy box. Start in your living room and remove anything that is only of value to you. If you could see someone else purchasing the item at a store, then it can stay. Likely no one would purchase the arts and craft project that your child made and is proudly displayed on the television in your living room. Pack that one away.

All family photographs need to be taken down and stored. Anything with a name on it should be removed. While you are removing your personalized items, don’t forget to pay attention to the clutter in the home. If you have bookshelves packed full of books, trim down your library. Make your home resemble the neutral home that you saw when you toured the model.

Your goal while doing this is to make your home a place that a potential buyer will come and immediately feel at home. Walk through each room and ask yourself, “What is in here that I would not want if I was not in this family?” These are the things you should pack away. If you are unsure about one particular item, go ahead and pack it up. Go through every room of your house. While you are doing so, don’t forget to check the closets and bathrooms. Yes, potential buyers will be looking in your closets!

During the process of making your home anonymous, you will likely find larger items that need to be stored. Take all of these items and your box to a storage locker. Store them away until moving day. While you will miss your personal treasures while you are selling your house, think about the fun and excitement your family will have when you get to open that storage locker and move those precious memories into your new house! With this technique you will sell your house much quicker because each family that walks in the door will be able to picture the house as theirs.

It’s a problem faced by a growing number of Americans – a house that just won’t sell. The era of easy credit is drying up, especially for first time buyers, and in markets with stagnant or even declining housing values investors are shying away from purchasing second or third houses. So if you’re a frustrated seller, where does that leave you? Hopefully, it leaves you motivated to work a little harder. There are a number of things you can do to improve your chances of selling, and with some ingenuity and a little extra sweat you might be able to tip the balance in your favor.

1. Hold an open house during the week. More and more people work jobs with unconventional hours so the traditional weekend open house might be missing an important slice of buyers.
2. Don’t get discouraged by unrealistic reality TV shows. There are a plethora of reality shows on cable that follow a home seller’s strategies and struggles. More often than not these shows have a happy ending: a quick sale, a tidy profit, and smiles all around. It can be disheartening to feel like everyone is getting rich except you, but remember that’s the power of Hollywood – for every happy ending they show there are a dozen heartbreaks they don’t show.
3. Have a friend or co-worker who has never seen the house walk through with you. Sometimes a house can have problems that the owner doesn’t notice anymore, and a fresh pair of eyes can be invaluable.
4. Sweat the little things, because prospective buyers will. A small crack in the wall, a tub that needs re-caulked, a dripping faucet – all minor things, but many buyers might see them as warning signs of larger problems e.g. a cracked wall may make them suspicious of larger water damage. At the very least they might see it as evidence the property was not cared for properly.
5. Ask your real estate agent to help you get feedback from buyer agents who have shown your house. The comments their clients make can be a guide for improving the property.
6. Leave refreshments out. After a day of house-hopping an ice cold soda or the sugar-boost of a cookie can put buyers in a better state of mind as they tour your house.
7. Don’t forget the exterior. There are a record number of houses for sale right now, and with so much to look at buyers sometimes never even get out of the car before rejecting a property. Keep the lawn trim and green, plant some inexpensive flowers, and touch up trim paint where needed.
8. Don’t forget the neighborhood. People aren’t just moving into a house, they’re moving into a neighborhood, and they’re going to be judging that as well. Try to keep the sidewalk swept, clean up any trash or graffiti on the block, maybe even offer to mow your neighbor’s lawn or trim their trees if they don’t have the time to get to it themselves.
9. Check prices for comparable houses in your area. Even though you probably did that at the beginning of this process prices may have fluctuated since then, especially in this volatile housing market.
10. Finally, be ready for bad news. If months have gone by ask yourself if you’re willing to accept a lower offer, and if so how low. This decision is best made in advance, not in the pressure of a prospective buyer’s “take it or leave it” low-ball offer.

There’s no second chance to make a first impression on a potential home buyer. Preliminary planning, attention to detail, and creativity can help you in making sure your home generates a positive first impression.

Preliminary planning enables you to make your home visibly attractive to potential buyers prior to advertising your open house event. Before you advertise a date for open house inspect the outside appearance of your home. People who are interested in attending the open house may drive by and look at your house prior to the event so your house needs to look appealing enough to drawn them back on the day of open house.

Make sure your lawn looks nice. The yard should be mowed or leaves should be removed. There should not be toys or lawn equipment scattered around the yard. A garden hose is not only unsightly when left out but is also a potential hazard for a visitor to trip over. Shrubs that cover a portion of the windows should be trimmed. The walkway to your front door should be free of limbs from overgrown shrubs if there are any planted along the walkway.

As part of your preliminary planning, it is a good idea to actually attend a few open house events before you have one yourself. Go to the event with a mindset that you are seriously contemplating buying the home you are looking at. Pay attention to the flaws you notice and to the things that need attention or repair. You will view a home that is not your own more critically than you will the one you live in. When you get home take special note of how your home compares to the one you visited.

Small details matter when preparing your home for open house. It’s probably the small details that drew critical attention from you when you went to an open house. There are some small things that seem to instantly make your home appear unattractive. If you have house numbers attached to your door or on the side of your house, make sure those numbers are straight. Outdoor items such as lampposts and mailbox need to be in good condition. If a coat of paint is needed, it is well worth the time and small effort required to make them look better.

The interior of your home must be clean. Try to make each room look as large as possible. If you have too much furniture or furniture that is too large for the space its in you might want to store some of the pieces. Definitely clear away all clutter. Again, check the small stuff. Clean, replace, or repair small problems that attract negative attention. Clean carpet stains, replace broken blinds and missing door handles or drawer pulls, repair dripping faucets and anything else that you should have already repaired but just hadn’t taken time to do so.

A open house at your home should be a memorable event for the potential buyer. Use holidays and seasons to help enhance the beauty and appeal of your home. When decorating in a holiday theme don’t overdo it. Keep it simple. Decorating according to the season is always a good idea. Fresh flowers placed in a few rooms in spring work well. Placing arrangements of fresh garden items on the kitchen counter adds beauty to your home during the summer. Autumn offers a vary of options for decorating both inside and outside using pumpkins, gourds, and apples. Winter offers you an opportunity to make your home feel like a warm refuge. The aroma of hot cocoa or spiced cider in your home instantly makes a visitor feel welcome.

You don’t want a potential buyer to just take a quick walk through your home and leave. You want to encourage them to linger. You want them to begin to see this house as one they would like to come home to at the end of the day. If your open house is during a warm time of year, place some iced tea, lemonade, or an assortment of drinks in an attractive display on your porch or deck. This will encourage people to linger outside, enjoy their cool beverage and imagine themselves entertaining friends out there. In cooler months you can make coffee, hot cider, tea, or cocoa available inside. Place books and magazines on tables that might pique the interest of a visitor. A display of collectible items can attract someone’s attention and generate conversation that will lead to a longer visit.

Turn your open house into an event to remember by designing it so that potential buyers can participate in an activity while at your home. Enjoying a special event there may make them see the potential for entertaining friends there themselves. Be creative. If your open house is near Easter you might want to arrange a display of baskets, bunnies, and chicks as a focal point for a foyer or dining room. Have a supply of dyed eggs, decals, crayons, and markers nearby. Encourage your visitors to decorate an egg and add it to the basket. In autumn, place a few scarecrow frames outside. Put some old clothes, hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, and various other items in baskets near the frames. Encourage the visitors to join in on dressing the scarecrows.

You want your home to look attractive to a potential buyer. You want it to feel comfortable. The longer a visitor lingers the more opportunity they have to been to feel like your home could easily be their home, which is precisely how you want them to feel.