7 SECRETS to getting TOP DOLLAR when you sell your house!

Is there a move in your future?

You have decided you want to move!  EXCITING!!  You are going to move from the current house you own to a bigger house, or a better location, or closer to your family…whatever the reason, you are ready!  You saw online an ADORABLE house that might be JUST PERFECT!!  YOU WANT IT NOW!!!!Whoa NELLY!!!  You need to SLOW down if you want to get TOP dollar for your current house.  Just because the Smith family got a gajillion dollars for their house, and you have the same model,  does not mean your house will capture the same price!  Is the Smith family just luckier than you are?  Maybe.  But here are a few sure fire ways to up your luck stats.  Here are the 7 secrets to selling for the most money, and quickly too!

7 SECRETS to selling quickly and for the MOST money:

1. Walk your house with a notepad and pen and write down EVERYTHING that you see that needs repair.  Start on the outside.  Look up.  How’s the wood along your roof, your eves?  See any wood rot?  Could it use a new coat of paint?  If so, get the handyman or roofer over now.  If you see it, so will all potential buyers, and it will give your home less value in their mind.  Cut trees branches away from your roof too.  Is your hose bib leaking? Fix it.  Does your gate latch?  It better. All of these little things you’ve been ignoring should be dealt with first.  Do the inside too, fix the toilet that always runs, and get new blinds in the room that the dog tried to escape, clean your vents and change your filters…PRETEND you do that every 30 days and always have!
2. Check out your landscaping.  Is it alive?  Is it lush?  Did your drip system break and all the plants are hanging on by a thread?  Water everything.  We live in a desert, and whether you have desert landscaping or grass and rose bushes, it should all be well watered, as green as possible, and healthy looking.  Often just increasing your water will get you there…in a couple of weeks.  You need to make sure everything looks as good as possible when you hit the market, so start the watering now.  Get that brown grass green.  Rip out and replace plants that water can’t save…with new plants the same size as everything else.  Place colorful pots by your front door and plant flowers.
3. Fancy things up a bit once you’ve made your repairs and greened things up.  Replace your brass and glass builder grade light fixtures.  Yes, all of them.  It isn’t that expensive, and WOW what a difference it makes. Your carriage lights, the lights by the front door, and even all of the light fixtures in your house if they are showing age, or are still brass and glass as well.  If your lights are attached to fans, replace the fans too.  Modernizing the light fixtures throughout the house will improve your home’s appeal exponentially….for very little money.
4. Once you have done your light fixtures, why don’t you just go ahead and do your door knobs too, especially if they are brass.  Nothing screams the 90’s louder than brass doorknobs, and nobody wants to go back to 90’s style.  You don’t have to replace the door hinges if they are brass, just paint them the same white as the door trim.  No one will notice.
5. If you have a red kitchen, or a lime green bedroom, it is time to get out the paint.  The new “in” color is gray-eige.  Gray and beige blend.  It goes with everything.  Use it on all of your walls if you want…people love it!  But if not everywhere, make sure you get rid of your “wild side” choices.         
6. Other options for getting top sale price for your current home are unlimited.  If you happen to have the Corian counter tops with the blue stripe along the edge,  like I do in my 1994 built house…it might be worth looking into replacing those.  People OBSESS over my stripe, and really don’t care how great the Corian sink is and how much I love it.  People can NOT see past that stripe.  It is amazing, but one little stripe that didn’t bug me at all could turn away most potential buyers, and give anyone willing to make an offer a reason to knock $10K off my list price.  Crazy but true.   People have zero imagination, so you have to SHOW them how awesome the house is, and not let them get stuck on any of your retro, (but still working!) cosmetics.
7. Lastly, but certainly not least, pack up half of your stuff, maybe  even 75%.  No I am not kidding, and I am not even exaggerating a little.  No, I don’t need to see how much stuff you have to be POSITIVE your house will show better with at least half of it gone.  Look, you’re moving.  You are going to have to pack it up anyway.  Just get started now and get rid of, or pack, at least half of everything.  Clean out your closets, donate what you don’t want, pack half of what you do, and put the other half back in the closet.  You want those closets to look like they are so spacious you could fit 6 more people in your family before you ran out of closet space.  I’m talking linen closets, bedroom closets, and even your pantry.  All of them should appear loaded with unused space.  What you want potential buyers to think is  if your family of four has this much space everywhere, that they, being a young family of three with number four on the way, will never feel like they don’t have enough room.  But it isn’t just closets that should be emptied.  Empty everywhere….get the bean bag out of the kid’s room, remove all the sparkly stars hanging from the ceiling in the game room, and really the nets holding 983 stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling should go too.  Grandma’s piano in the front room, and that old fashioned popcorn maker should go…along with your curio cabinet and that weird life sized butler dude you have in the living room.  If the bench at the entry makes a perfect spot for kid’s backpacks, but makes the entry a little squeezed, get rid of it.  If the buyer hits their knee on that bench while entering your home,  their attitude won’t be the best for the full price offer you are hoping to get.  If you can’t store everything in your garage, rent a storage place for a short time.  A little money spent now will equal MORE money in your pocket when you sell.

If you don’t know where to start, call me!  I will walk your house with you, I will discuss your BEST options to get your house sold for the most money, and be honest with what you shouldn’t waste your money on.

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