5 Tips to Make Any House Sell Faster

No matter the market, if you’re like most people, when you want to sell- you want to sell.  Shortening time on the market is even more important during slow or Buyer’s markets, when competition is fierce and time on the market (and the additional housing payments that go with it) can really eat into your equity.  Here are 5 tips to help you sell faster no matter the market:

1. You may absolutely love your family pictures all over the house, in every room.  Unfortunately, they make it much harder for a potential buyer to envision the house as their own, especially if you look quite different than they do.
2. Sell to a professional homebuyer. If you’re in the Greater Charlotte area and would literally like to sell your house for all cash within days, contact Property Solutions, LLC at https://www.soldcarolina.com/.  If you live in a different area of the country, reputable companies that buy houses can be found everywhere, but do your research!  Not all real estate investment companies are created equal.  Be sure to check customer reviews and read up on them first.
3. Stage the house. Is your house empty?  You may want to consider hiring a professional staging company, or, at minimum, putting some things up yourself.  Towels, bath mat sets, and shower curtains in the bathroom, vases on countertops or mantles (plastic flowers work best).  Appropriately placed furniture pieces can help to define living space and make it easier for prospective buyers to visualize living in, or draw attention either towards attractive features, or away from undesirable features.  You will almost always get the best results going with a professional home staging company, and many times they will even rent you the furniture and other items.  However, if you have a flair for design and time to spend cruising Thrift Stores for the perfect piece to fit that special area, it may be something you will enjoy doing yourself.  In either case, if properly done, it will make the house sell much faster.
4. “But I’m selling the house, I don’t want to put more money into it!”.  Point taken, but money put into the right areas will yield more money out.  If you’ve had pets, you probably don’t smell a thing because you’re used to them, but non pet owners (or even worse, those allergic to those pets) are guaranteed to smell it the instant they step in the front door.  Easy fix: have the carpets professionally cleaned.  Hot water extraction works best.  A coat of paint can do wonders to freshen up an area and make it look newer, particularly if you’ve removed pictures that have hung on the wall for years, leaving discolored squares and rectangles around the room.  Think of high-impression rooms first, like the entryway (many buyers decide within seconds of entering a house if they like it or not, and though they may be induced to change their mind, are more likely to look for evidence to confirm their initial impression), kitchens, and living rooms.
5. Be a flexible seller. Find out what it was about the house that made a looker decide not to buy, then offer them to have it changed, for a price, or at your expense- paint colors, flooring, lack of fenced backyard when they have children, etc . . . It could be something extremely simple (and cheap), and you would never know if you didn’t ask!

Lou Gimbutis, Owner of Property Solutions, LLC, has been buying and selling houses since 2004.