21 Tips for Selling Your Home Quickly

Are you planning on selling your home in the near future? Worried about the economy and the real estate market? If so, you are not alone. Through our websites, we receive a lot of questions from homeowners who are selling soon. And the number-one question goes something like this: “I need to sell my house as quickly as possible, but we are in a slow market. Do you have any tips?”

This is a common concern among homeowners. So I thought I’d address it from every possible angle. Below, I have compiled some of my top tips for selling your home quickly. These strategies will help you succeed in any market. Sure, it’s a lot easier to sell a house in a seller’s market, when buyers are snatching them up quickly. But you still need to take the right steps to get it sold fast. In a buyer’s market, when offers are few and far between, it’s even more important to get it right.

So without further ado, I give you 21 tips for selling your home fast, and for top dollar.

Prepare for the Selling Process – ASAP

Long before you list your home for sale, you should start researching your local real estate market. This will help you understand market trends, home prices, and other important pieces of the puzzle. Understanding the market will help you sell your house more quickly. Here’s where to start:

• How much of the home do you actually own? How much equity do you have? This is a good place to start, because negative equity could make selling your home more of a challenge. A lot of homeowners lost value in their homes during the housing crisis of 2008 – 2009. Were you one of them? You need to find out before you venture into the selling process.
• Start adopting a seller’s mindset. I know it’s hard, but you’ll have to start thinking about your home as a product with certain strengths and weaknesses. This will help you price the home properly, market it successfully, and move toward a sale. Selling your home quickly requires some objectivity on your part. You need to shift your mindset from that of a homeowner (with an emotional connection) to a seller (with a strong desire to sell).
• At this stage, you should also be following your local real estate market. Is the market heating up or cooling down? Is it stacked in favor of the buyer or the seller? How long, on average, do homes stay on the market before a sale? What’s the average sale price for home sold in the last few months? You must understand the market first, and enter it second. If you have an agent, he or she will help you with this part of the home selling process.
• If possible, check out some of the homes that are currently for sale in your area. This is your competition, so you need to know what you’re up against. Open houses are a great way to do this. This will help you price your home more strategically, based on current competition and sales prices. Selling your home quickly means pricing it right from the start, and research is the first step to this.

We touched on pricing in this section of the home selling guide. But it’s an important topic that deserves a “chapter” of its own. So let’s talk about in more depth…

Price Your Home to Sell Quickly

You can price your home in one of three ways. You can price it to sell quickly, eventually, or not at all. Obviously, the first option is what you want. Here’s how to achieve it.

• In the previous section, I talked about changing your mindset from owner to seller. In reality, you are both of these things. But you need to think more like a salesperson than a homeowner, especially when pricing your home. Adopt this mindset now, before you move any further into the home selling process.
• To piggyback on the point made above, let me offer you a mantra that you can repeat to yourself. “It’s not personal. It’s all business.” You should repeat this mantra as you determine your asking price. The personal and emotional connection you have to your home does not translate into market value.
• There’s a possibility your home is worth less today than when you bought it. When the housing bubble burst last year, it caused property values to drop in many cities across America. You might live in a city where home values help steady, or depreciated only slightly. If so, count yourself lucky. But be open to the reality of the situation. You might be selling your home for less than what you paid for it.
• The market determines what your home is worth — you do not. If you price the property based on what you need to get from the sale (and this amount exceeds the true market value), you are setting yourself up for failure.
• The only way to sell an overpriced home is by finding a totally clueless buyer — one who is willing to pay more for a home than the current market value. Such buyers are few and far between! In the wake of our housing crisis and economic recession, buyers are more price-savvy than ever before. Nobody wants to buy into a negative-equity situation, and most lenders won’t even allow it. So price the home properly from the start.
• If you have a real estate agent, he or she will help immensely during this stage. Your agent will gather data from recent / comparable sales in the area. This is what agents refer to as “comps,” and they are the key to your pricing strategy. If the buyer also has an agent (and most of them do), they will be looking at the same data. If you price yourself above the comps but have nothing to justify it, then your home will be on the market for a long time.
• If you’re selling the home by yourself, you should have an appraisal done. Comparable sales are good guide to pricing, but they only take the other houses into account. They don’t take into account any improvements you’ve made to your own house. A person has to do this — whether it’s a real estate agent or a professional home appraiser.

So let’s assume you have researched your local real estate market and set a good price for the home. What’s next? It’s time to list the home and bring in the buyers, right? Well, not quite. You’ve almost reached the marketing stage, but there’s one important thing left to do. You must prepare the home for buyers…

Stage the Home to Sell it Faster

Home staging is a process in which you make a house look its absolute best, in order to sell it more quickly. It’s important to stage a home in any type of market, but especially in a buyer’s market. We are not talking about major remodeling projects here. We are talking about low-cost, “quick and dirty” improvements to the property. This includes things like cleaning, painting, landscaping, and furniture arrangement.

• The first step in the staging process is to de-clutter the home. You have to pack things up anyway, in order to move. So start early, and clear out as many of your personal effects as possible. This will make the home seem larger and more spacious, and it will improve the flow as people walk through it.
• Many people have too much furniture in their homes, relative to the square footage. Or they over-sized furniture, like a huge couch in a small living room. Both of these things will make the home seem crowded and cramped. Remove excess furniture. Put it into storage if necessary. This will improve the flow and make the home seem larger — a primary goal of home staging.
• Painting is one of the cheapest things you can do to improve the appearance of your home. Use warm, neutral colors inside the home. This will appeal to the largest possible audience, which is the goal of home staging. Stay away from bold or taste-specific colors. When in doubt, ask the person at the paint counter for suggestions.
• If you have a yard, make sure it looks healthy and neat before showing the home. You can file this under curb appeal. It helps make a good first impression when buyers pull up to the curb, and it creates a positive frame of mind that they will take inside the home with them. Here are some landscaping tips for curb appeal.
• Updating light fixtures, sink faucets and cabinet knobs is another low-cost strategy for improve your home. For example, you could bring an outdated bathroom up to the present with a can of paint, a new light fixture, and a few knobs. The total cost could be less than $100. These are the kinds of things you want to focus on when staging the home — quick and easy, low-cost improvements.

If you would like to learn more about this part of the home selling process, check out this article on the Home Buying Institute website. It’s one of the most comprehensive checklists for staging that you’ll find anywhere!

Selling your home quickly requires a certain amount of homework and preparation. If you price the house effectively and stage it properly, you are virtually guaranteed to find a buyer. If you skip any of these important steps, you will simply drag out the sale.

Market the Property Far and Wide

Price it wisely. Prep it thoroughly. Promote is widely. These are the key steps to selling your home quickly in any market. We have talked about the first two steps already — pricing the home and preparing it for the market. Now let’s continue along in the process and talk about your marketing strategy.

• If you are working with a real estate agent, he or she will handle most of the marketing process for you. But there are still some things you can do for yourself.
• Your agent will list your home on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which will put it in front of the largest audience in the shortest time. If you are selling your own home, without an agent, you’ll have to find a way to get it onto the MLS. It’s the easiest way to reach the largest pool of home buyers.
• Word of mouth can go a long way to help you sell the home quickly, so tell all of your friends, neighbors and coworkers about it. I know several people who have sold their homes in this fashion. Start with the MLS, and then add a healthy dose of word-of-mouth marketing.
• Put a lawn sign in the yard as soon as you are ready to show the property. Include a phone number and write it largely enough to be seen from the street. You might want to include “Call to schedule a showing” or something to that effect, so people aren’t knocking on your door at all hours. Again, if you have an agent, he or she will handle this for you.

The market will determine how much marketing you (or your agent) have to do. In a hot market with plenty of buyers, putting the home on the MLS might be the only thing you need to do. This alone could bring a steady stream of potential buyers to your door. In a slower market, you’ll have to be more proactive with your marketing efforts.

Conclusion and Going Forward

These are the steps to selling a home as quickly as possible. If you follow the advice outlined above, you’ll be more likely to find the right buyers and make a quick sale. If you’re not comfortable with the techniques listed above, it’s probably best that you hire a real estate agent to help you. This is especially true if you’re in a buyer’s market, with a surplus of homes and a shortage of qualified buyers. In this kind of situation, it’s wise to find an agent with a proven record of success.