Simple Steps to Help You Sell Your Home For the Most Money

When you sell your home, it is not merely a question of sticking a 'For Sale' sign in your yard and hoping for the best.

You need a selling plan - this plan needs to be well thought out even before you have your first showhouse and before you start doing repairs or making changes to the home.

You want the most money out of your property and you want to work with the best agent possible but you are not going to get that right if you make mistakes that could have been prevented.

Here are five ways you can prepare for the sale of your home:

1 - Consider your reasons for selling

As with any plan, you must have a motivation and a rationale, so ask yourself: "Why am I selling?" and explore all the different reasons that you have.

You might find that you are not totally committed to selling and that it is not the right time for you to sell.

And there's nothing wrong with that - especially now you've figured that out before you start with the marketing of your home!

Write down a list of pros and cons to staying and leaving. Weigh them up against each other and you will have a better idea of the way forward.

2 - Call real estate agents

Real estate agents are taking a commission for the work done - which comes out of your pocket - so they work for you!

Isn't it normal you'd interview them for the job first? Or does wearing a real estate badge automatically qualify them as suitable to sell your home?

Ask each agent to give you a marketing plan that shows what they will do to market your home.

You can also ask them to prepare comparative market analyses so that you have an idea of the home values in your neighbourhood. This will help you and your agent to work together so that you can list the house at a reasonable price.

3 - Prepare your home

Once you have done the above, you can now start looking at the house itself.

Compare all the suggestions that you have received up until this point and decide how you are going to prepare the house so that it looks amazing.

Try removing all the bulky and unused furniture from the rooms.

Put any extra stuff that you don't use in the garage or a storage unit. You can also use this time to throw out a lot of stuff that you don't use anymore. Give the house a proper deep cleaning so that it looks new and if you don't know how to do this, hire a team of professionals.

4 - Decide whether to make repairs

Not all the repairs you make will pay off when you sell. That's unfortunately the reality!

You need to decide which repairs will get you a decent return on your investment - whether it be a monetary return or result in a speedy sale.

Generally-speaking, kitchen and bathroom repairs tend to show the best returns but be careful that you don't start remodelling everything and sit with a loss.

If you are unsure, ask for professional guidance before you spend unnecessary money. Even if you don't want to spend a lot of money on home improvements, you need to repair obvious maintenance issues.

5 - Stage your home

The last part is the most exciting: staging your home.

Everything you have done up until this point has been in the hopes of luring a buyer.

You want to give a warm, fuzzy atmosphere but you also don't want it to seem too lived-in. The buyer needs to picture themselves living in the house.

Move furniture around, remove any photos that you might have of your family, and get the lighting just right. If you are unsure, you can hire a professional home stager to help you.

Selling your home is never an easy task but with these abovementioned tips, you might have less sweat to wipe off your brow!