The end of summer often marks an important time for real estate. It’s a common time of year for owners to decide to list their homes for sale. It may be the change in the weather or the timing with the start of the school year and upcoming holidays. Whatever the reason, you can usually expect a flood of homes to hit the market this time of year. If you’re trying to sell now too, you’re probably wondering how you can make your home stand out among the crowd. We’d like to offer you these 5 tips to help get your home sold in less time, for more money.

Once the sign goes up, the flyers go in and the listing goes live, you may think your work is done. This would be flawed thinking. There are things you need to do to prepare your home to stand out.

To repair or not to repair – Occasionally, a seller will list their house as-is. This is most often when a home is being sold as a short sale or when the owner doesn’t expect to make much profit on the sale. If you’re asking top dollar for your home, you should have your home in top shape. This means making all those small repairs you’ve been putting off. Small holes in walls, cracked tiles and torn screens all scream poor maintainence to a buyer. Make the small repairs now or expect to take a lower sale price or even have a potential buyer walk away from the deal before it even gets on paper.

Purge or Pack – Sure, Johnny’s kindergarten art project looks beautiful on your fridge and that jumbo size painting of Grandpa Joe looks great on your mantle. But to a buyer it clouds the view and makes it hard for them to see themselves in your home. Go room by room and pack or purge any personal items including knick knacks, family portraits, religious relics and anything else that might turn off potential buyers. Keep it as neutral as possible and you’ll have more buyers envisioning their own family portrait on that mantle.

Slim Down – No, we don’t mean you need to go on a diet. Many homes in America contain far more furniture than really fits in the room. This practice can make rooms look much smaller than they are and may make the buyer feel like their own furniture might not fit. The best fix is to move extra furniture to a storage shed until you move. Not planning to take it with you? Now might be a great time for a yard sale!

Let There Be Light Packing away extra furniture is a great first step to brightening up your space. Also consider replacing dull or dusty bulbs in light fixtures, cleaning windows and screens and opening all blinds and window coverings during showings. A dark space can look dingy and give buyers a bad impression of an otherwise lovely home.

Clean It Up – In order to compete in a tough market, your home needs to be the diamond in the rough. If you don’t have time to clean it top to bottom, hire someone to do it for you. Recruit neighborhood kids to pull weeds, clean windows and sweep sidewalks. As mentioned above, a dirty home gives the impression it isn’t cared for. This is definitely not the impression you want to make when trying to sell.

A few small efforts can go along way toward making your home sell faster and for a higher price. Beat out the competition by following these steps and when you’re ready to list, call The Sandi Pressley Team.

Have An Awesome Week!

Sandi’s Hot Home Listing

24 Tierra Madre Rd, Placitas

Price: $450,000 Beds:3 Baths: 3 Square Feet: 2,408