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Setting the Asking Price
You want to sell your home and move, but you have a few months left before you have owned it the required 2 years to keep from having to pay capital gains. So what do you do. You put it on the market and stipulate that the seller will not close until X Date.
What do most sellers do: They put it on the market at $30,000 to $50,000 over market value thinking someone might buy it. If not, “We will lower the price to the market when it gets closer to the time we are wanting to sell and move.” Believe it or not even in today’s market this is still happening.
BAD IDEA!
Staging to Sell
Uncluttered
Once you have made the decision to put your home on the market the first thing to change is your attitude about the house. It is no longer your home, it is an investment property that you are trying to sell. This is often the hardest change to make. However, if you want to present your home to potential buyers in the best possible manner you have to dis-associate yourself from the property.
Eliminate clutter.
This is easier said than done. Why! Because Clutter is a subjective term. You might think you have put away the clutter by your definition only to find that it is still very cluttered when viewed by someone else. Eliminating clutter will more than likely be a multi-stage process requiring several steps.
- First layer
- Second layer
- Third layer
- actual surfaces begin to appear
Minimize Furnishings
You have this great collection of Neo-modern, Eclectic, Premium Salvation Army Furnishings ( I’m kidding but I hope you get the point ). Those antiques from grand relatives of the past. You want to show them off when people come to look at your home. It isn’t your stuff they are coming to buy. It is the container of the stuff and if the container looks overstuffed it looks small. Nobody wants to buy a small container to put their stuff in.
Taking the time and making the effort to do these few steps will create a good first impression.
Please do yourself a huge favor and don’t put your home on the market before it and you are ready.
Most sellers “think” they know what is best when it comes to selling however in truth they hurt themselves a lot but doing things just like you state “Over pricing by 50k”because they have some time before they need to move….The real estate sales process does not work like most people think and when sellers actually do things in a proper and thoughtful manner the correct outcomes usually occur.