The first day of spring was officially on March 20, 2023 and runs through June 21, 2023. This officially means that the “spring buying season” is upon us. In fact, 40% of all home sales tend to occur from March through June. Of course, high home prices and higher mortgage interest rates are making it more challenging for buyers. Given the lower number of buyers in the market, it is important for home sellers to implement as many strategies as they can to hope to sell their homes quickly. We share a few helpful tips to consider when trying to sell your home this spring season.
Helpful selling tips
- Maximize the curb appeal: The importance of nice curb appeal can not be overstated. After all, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. In particular, the exterior front of your home should be immaculate. In addition to well-manicured landscaping and foliage, you should also ensure that the exterior of your home looks clean, including your home’s paint job, roof, patios, siding, decking, and driveways. Simply pressure cleaning the exterior of the property can go a long way in improving curb appeal.
- Perform some spring cleaning: Prior to listing your property for sale, it is critical that you thoroughly clean the home. Things such as countertops, tiles, grouts, showers, and sinks are all ideal candidates to perform a thorough cleaning on. In addition, it is a good idea to have your floors professionally washed and polished, if applicable. Of course, de-cluttering is also an critical component when cleaning and preparing a home to be listed for sale. If necessary, you may even want to consider placing bulkier furnishings in storage in order to assist with de-cluttering the home.
- De-personalize the space: The psychology of home selling is often overlooked by many sellers and their real estate agents. It is important to remember that in order to achieve the goal of a prospective buyer wanting to buy your house, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to picture themselves living in the home. One important way to do this is to remove any personal items that may remind them that it is someone else’s home. Therefore, you may want to store personal items such as family photos and heirlooms that may distract from buyers envisioning themselves living in the home.
- Complete home improvement projects: While you typically never recoup every dollar spent on a home renovation project, it is important to ensure that your home is not too outdated when listing it for sale. The importance of this is even more pronounced in the current market. The reason for this is that due to higher home prices and mortgage rates, there are less buyers in the market. Therefore, in order to compete with a smaller pool of prospective buyers, you need to ensure that your home is considered to be “move-in ready”. Given the fact that home prices and interest rates are higher, this leaves less money for buyers to initiate home renovation projects. Not to mention, most buyers don’t want to deal with renovating a home.
- Have professionals photos taken: Professional photos for any listing are not negotiable. If your listing agent decides to take photos of your home with a smartphone, then you likely are not working with the proper real estate agent. In addition to having professional photos of the home taken, it is important to also include aerial photos wherever feasible. Keep in mind, some areas will restrict the use of drones for aerial photography. An example of this would be if the home is located near an airport.
Summary
In closing, it is important that in any housing market, most prospective buyers do not want to deal with a “fixer upper”. In addition to being a headache and quite costly, the majority of home buyers do not possess the vision needed to take on a project home. When considering the current market, it is also important to remember that buyers are already contending with high home prices and higher mortgage interest rates. Needless to say, this significantly impacts their buying power. As a result, many will likely not have enough money budgeted to take on a costly renovation project. As always, a local and experienced real estate agent should be able to offer you helpful tips to prepare your home to sell quickly and for top dollar.
Are you thinking about selling your home in the South Florida area? We can help! Contact Natasha at Live South Florida Realty, Inc. today! Also, be sure to download the free Florida Home Search app for your smartphone or tablet as well.
