You should always price your home high and gradually lower it if it doesn’t sell.
The truth is that pricing too high is just as bad as pricing too low. You may think by listing high you can always accept a lower offer, but if you do, you’ll miss the buyers looking in the price range where your home should be. Offers may not even come in, because interested buyers are scared off by the price and won’t bother to look. By the time the listing price is corrected, you will have lost a large group of potential buyers. Your real estate agent will offer you a comparable market analysis. This is a document that compares your home to other similar homes in your area, with the goal of helping you to accurately assess your home’s true market value.
Minor repairs can wait until later. There are more important things to be done.
The truth is that minor repairs make your house more marketable, allowing you to maximize your return (or minimize loss) on the sale. By and large, buyers are looking for an inviting home in move-in condition. Buyers who are willing to tackle the repairs after moving in automatically subtract the cost of needed fix-ups from the price they offer. You save nothing by putting off these items, and you may likely slow the sale of your home.
Once potential buyers see the inside of your home, curb appeal won’t matter.
Actually, Buyers probably won’t make it to the inside of the home if the outside of your home does not appeal to them. Many buyers drive by a home before deciding whether or not to look inside. Your home’s exterior will have less than a minute to make a good first impression. Spruce up the lawn, trim shrubs and trees, and weed the garden. Clear the walkways and driveways of leaves and other debris. Repair gutters and eaves, touch up the exterior paint and repair or resurface cracked driveways and sidewalks. Place potted flowers out front, hang a wreath on the door and put out a pleasing welcome mat for added curb appeal.
Once potential buyers fall in love with the exterior look of your home, you put interior improvements on the back burner.
Buyers have no qualms about walking right out the front door within 60 seconds if the house doesn’t look like it could be theirs. Remember that most buyers are looking for an inviting home in move-in condition. Spending a few thousand dollars for the right work on your home before you sell it, usually translates into a higher selling price and shorter marketing time. Your real estate agent will consult with you about the repairs and replacements that will benefit you most.
Your home must be every homebuyer’s dream home.
If you get carried away with repairs and replacements to your home, you may end up over-improving
the house. At some point, improvements that you make to your home can exceed what is customary for comparable homes in your area. For instance, there may not be another swimming pool in your entire subdivision. As a general guideline, if your improvements push your home’s value higher than 20% above average neighboring home values, don’t expect to recoup the entire amount of improvements.
Buyers are never swayed by sellers that offer creative financing options.
By offering flexibility in financing options, you may lure more prospective buyers.
You might consider offering seller financing, paying some of the buyer’s closing costs, including a one-year home warranty, or other buyer incentives. Your real estate agent, who has professional knowledge of local market activity, can help you decide what incentives, if any, to offer. Here is a great article from FOX about Four House Selling Myths.
I agree on the fact that you can “over improve” a house. I have a friend who’s cousin recently remodeled his bathroom before he listed the home. His house was nice, not extremely special, but it was a nice home. The only odd room was master bath which was extremely outdated. He ended up making it look amazing. Brand new everything, with marble, a top of the line shower and tub. He expected that a buyer would pay a lot more for the home because of it. The problem is that the bathroom was the nicest room in the house, and it didn’t “go with” anything else. So essentially, he thought people would pay a lot more money because of a bathroom. Think before you renovate hoping to reap rewards for it.