Selling Your Home? Here's 5 DIY Tips to Do Before Listing

Tip 1: Get a Home Inspection 

Getting a home inspection costs around $300-600 and while it might seem counterintuitive to get an inspection on your home before you list, this $300-$600 investment might save you thousands of dollars on negotiating with buyers. Why?

• You know exactly what needs to be fixed and what doesn’t. So no surprises, and you can mitigate the number of repairs a buyer may ask for.
• You will have a lower likelihood of the buyer asking for repairs that may amount to more than what the repairs actually cost. This means preserving the asking/listing price of your home. So instead of the buyers asking for $10,000 in repairs for maybe $1,500 worth of work, you might just do the $1,500 worth of work and not run into buyers asking crazy repair concessions from you.
• Getting a home inspection will give you more control and negotiating power in your transaction when buyers ask for items to be repaired, or for cash in lieu of doing repairs, because you can present your receipts saying it’s already been taken care of. Proof of repairs can save you from these costly conversations. 

Remember, an inspector’s job is to find things to point out to a buyer. No matter what, they will find something but this is simply to mitigate the amount it will cost you to take care of those repairs. A buyer who finds a number of repairs might ask for you to repair them anyway, ask for a disproportionate amount of money to remedy the solution themselves, or they might get scared by the items and walk away (which would cost considerably more than just a few thousand dollars). 

Tip 2: Neutralize , De-Personalize, Minimize

• If you have bold colors on your cabinets, ceilings, walls, or even just accent walls you might consider repainting them to more neutral colors.
  
  
• Colors to repaint to:  
• light greys, creams and whites, tans, and swap less vibrant primary colors for more subtle navy’s, forest greens. 
• Colors to avoid: 
• REDS, ORANGES, YELLOWS, PURPLES, bright greens, bright blues, dark greys, blacks

• Remove personal memorabilia, personal items and photos
• The point in selling your home is to have a buyer walk in and imagine it will be their home. It is much harder to do that if there are very specific personal items or a lot of personal photos in the room. The buyer will see more of you living there than a home they are imagining their family moving into. 

• Reduce Furniture and Declutter
• A clean home is a happy home and that also applies to the walls and lines.  Many homes have a lot of extra items on the walls that are specific to that seller, and removing even 50% will make the home feel more spacious, allow the buyer to be able to walk through more easily and imagine their stuff in the space. 

Tip 3:  Stage

I always stage my homes and the reason for that is that they have always gotten more money than asking when staged properly. Staging brings out your furniture and replaces it with modern chic stage furniture, paintings, and simple touches will help sell your home in the best possible way.  It will likely cost the most out of your budget but it has always helped preserve and increase value because when you stage you are creating a new narrative for the home. Staging is an opportunity for your home to function differently than how you currently live in it and it might be more appealing to the current market and potential buyers. This can really help you get a great offer in the shortest period of time. I would suggest looking on Instagram at different local home stagers, view their capacity and also get different quotes. Not all home staging is created equally. You would not put ultra high end furniture in a modest home because it will be mismatched and it would cost you a lot of money. Find stagers that will appropriately stage your home for your market and area, and not be exorbitantly expensive or way too cheap for your area. You want to match the higher-end average of the homes of your area.

Tip 4: Depending on Your Market– If It’s Not a Weekend at Lowes, Don’t Do It.

If you have a great home in a moderately active market where the days on market are less than 90 days (and here in TN we have Days on Market of only 14), doing big expensive repairs or remodels are not necessary and not going to add the value you want unless your home is extremely outdated, broken or worn. If your market moves quickly and you want to list, I would not stress out about getting everything perfect. If you haven’t updated in the past few years or if you don’t really want to do the work – you may not need to. It may reflect in the price some, but what we do not want is for you to sink a ton of money expecting a larger return than you might actually get. We want to think of doing the best $ for $ returns so the least expensive items will bring the most money back. In a very active market, it may mean just some touch-up paint, fix a few light bulbs, and small repairs and you’re good to go vs a total kitchen overhaul.  It may cost too much and while you will get a return out of it – it just depends only your goals

Tip 5: Sit Down to Write Your Goals and Share Them With an Agent:

If you know your goals you’re much more likely to hit them, but your home’s value is not in a vacuum and the market is changing weekly. It would be best to bring on an agent who can let you know whether your goals are realistic or not, because just because your neighbor’s house sold for $x dollars does not mean yours is worth more, less, or the same. Knowing how much you’d like to walk away with, the ideal timeframe to sell your home, when you need to buy a new one, and how you want the process to go are all important things to consider. It’s also important to start interviewing agents so that you can be well-informed and know that you’re on track.