Selling a Home
Get Top Dollar for Your San Diego County Home
Decided to sell? Great! For most sellers, the focus is getting top dollar for your home. How do you do that?
Make sure your home appears move-in ready.
In any real estate market, a move-in ready home is:
More desirable
Quicker to sell
You may see your home as move-in ready – you already live there! But a buyer may not.
Pick an agent you like and trust
You will spend a lot of time with this person, so make sure you feel comfortable with them. Select someone who listens to you, and hears what is important to you. Pick an agent who is honest, knowledgeable, and truly cares about you.
Clean it and clear it!
If there was ever a time to declutter, this is it!
Think “model home” – sleek, spare, and clean. Think zen.
Get a storage space if necessary, but clearing out is a must. This includes cupboards and cabinets. People will look in them. If they look full and cramped, the visitor thinks, “Uh oh, this house needs more storage!”
If you have lived in your home a long time, you tend to stop noticing things like discoloration around a light switch, scuffed baseboards, unusual paint colors, worn furniture, packed shelves or bookcases, other types of clutter.
Once the clutter is out, then comes the deep clean – every corner and every crevice. Not your favorite task? Hire someone to do it for you.
Fix it!
Maybe you stopped “seeing” the low-priority shortcomings of your house long ago, but new eyes will notice.
Someone looking to buy your home is looking with a critical eye. They fear a money pit. If the cosmetic elements of your home are not ship-shape, they will wonder about the general condition of unseen parts of the home.
What is the ‘gold standard’ for making your home appear move-in ready? Think back on last model home you saw. It was WOW, right?
Home builders go to great expense to provide model homes because they know how very effective they are as sales tools. An empty house is not exciting. A beautifully decorated house is definitely exciting, and stimulates buying.
Stage it!
Are you good at decorating? Great! If not, you can hire someone to do it for you. History shows that at staged home sells for more money than a not-staged home.
Also, light matters a lot! Make sure curtains are open and lights are on when people see it.
FAQs
Q. Is it safe to sell our home during a pandemic?
A. Housing is considered essential so real estate pros came up with ways to keep us all safe. During this time of Covid-19, we employ extra safety precautions. Visitors to your home are asked to sign a form saying they are not sick, that they will wear a mask, and that they won’t touch anything.
Your home goes on the MLS and is seen by appointment only. No more open houses with people casually walking through.
There is also excellent 3D walkthrough photography these days that simulates actually walking through the house. That lets interested parties see the house without actually walking through it.
Q. How much can I get for my house?
A. Depends on location and the condition of your home. We look at comparable properties “comps” that have sold recently. Even tract homes are not identical, so value is found by adding for an extra bedroom, subtracting for busy street, you get the idea. Regardless of what price you put on it, the market generally decides. If you overprice it, it will sit. If you under-price it, it will bid up.
Q. My neighbors prefer that I sell to a family. How can I know the family status of the buyers?
A. Slippery slope alert! You used to be able to do this, but we have seen some legal challenges recently with single people or couples without children bringing lawsuits for discrimination. It is a very bad idea to select a buyer based on any practice considered discriminatory, including family status.
Once upon a time, buyers in hot markets (like San Diego) would commonly craft a letter about their family, include photos, and give that to the seller in hopes of convincing the seller to pick them. So called “love letters” used to be very popular. They are a no-no these days and open the door on serious legal problems. I now advise sellers not to accept them.
Q. I put my house on the market and it sat a long time, then came the lowball offers. My neighbor got a price that was over asking, and my backyard is bigger than his and I have slightly more square footage. What happened there?
A. Without seeing both in person, we have to guess.
Your neighbor’s home was either move-in ready, had some special feature such as a view or position on a canyon rim. Or all of these. Typically it means their house was fixed up in a way that better appealed to buyers.
Q. What happens when you get multiple offers on a home – do you just go with the highest bidder?
A. You are looking at several things when evaluating multiple offers, not just the highest dollar amount.
For example, if buyer A comes in $5000 over buyer B, look closely at the financing terms. If buyer A’s financing looks less solid, you may be better off with that slightly lower offer. If the financing fails, the escrow fails.
Q. I have more questions. I am not ready to sell just yet, but I want to talk to someone about the steps to take and how to prepare. Can I talk to someone even if my sale date is a long way off?
A. Yes of course. It’s good to get the input of an advisor well in advance so you can begin crafting your plan. Call Elaine at (619) 851-3140.