As you’re probably aware, there are many things you should know before selling your house. But, what are those things, exactly? Here’s a quick refresher …
1. It’s a Seller’s Market
Home sales have gone up almost 6% from last year. The National Association of Realtors was surprised by this, since they had predicted that rising interest rates, as well as generally lowered purchasing power of buyers, would mean less homes sold. But as it turns out, they didn’t need to be biting their fingernails over the housing market.
What does the seller’s market mean for you, other than, “Yay!”?
2. Don’t Forget About Your HVAC System
So you’ve repainted your walls, put a nice backsplash in the kitchen, and added new fixtures. All things that could improve the resale value of your home. That’s great! But fixing small flaws like this isn’t nearly as important as the big-ticket items in your home being in working order.
Holes in the walls, a bad roof, or broken appliances are examples of bigger problems that buyers will notice. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and invest in renovating or replacing.
One appliance you may want to replace that you probably didn’t think about is your HVAC system! It’s the biggest appliance in your home. Smart buyers will definitely take a peek at the home’s HVAC, and try to get you to adjust the price down if it’s an old system.
At the very least, if you do have an old but functional HVAC system, you can get a service call to check the health of the unit. If the unit is good to go, you can get that in writing from your tech so that buyers are less likely to question your aging HVAC.
3. No, No, FSBO
You might be considering skipping the professionals, and planning to sell your home for sale by owner (FSBO).
After all, the market is in your favor, right? So you shouldn’t need the expertise of a professional. Actually, that’s not true! Because of the market being in the seller’s favor and there are a lower inventory of homes, buyers are more likely to use an agent to find a house.
Their agent will be using the multiple listing service (MLS), or will be talking with their colleagues, to sniff out the best options. It’s unlikely that these agents will stumble on your for-sale ad for their clients.
You need an agent of your own to really play the field of all the buyers looking for a home!
4. Set a Deadline
You’re going to be busy getting your house ready for the market. From preparing everything to move, talking to your agent and your accountant or financial planner … and of course, the extremely time-consuming and tedious process of all the paperwork, from the market analysis to the title report. Plus, all documents, contracts, tax records, etc. that you’ll need to track down. Suffice it to say, you’ll be busy, so the easiest way for you to review all the offers on your home is going to be setting a deadline for buyers to submit offers.
That way, you’ll know when you need to set aside a large chunk of time to review these offers, and be able to make a counteroffer, as well as possibly get with your agent about vetting the buyer. That’s one of the most important steps in this whole process!
Now that you know these top four tips for selling your home in the Bloomfield Hills area, you’ll be prepared to sell your house quickly in this hot market!
