How to Get Your Home Sold Faster By Following Checklist

Originally posted 2009-03-26 04:39:51. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Selling a home can be complicated.   The seller must ensure that the home is ready to be sold.   

The following is a basic checklist you must always refer to when trying to get the home sold.  The number one thing is that the seller must ensure that the home is ready to be shown to prospective buyers.  

 

·         De-clutter:  Reduce clutter. More and more people these days are looking at optimizing the space within the house. 

 

·         Make Beds: Make your bed.  Your agent may bring prospective buyers to your house and they may find beds not made. This is nothing major but it just gives a very negative impression. If you cannot make your beds in the morning, you can talk with your agent and ask him to avoid bringing in people before a particular time, or bring them only during weekends, the only time you make your bed!

 

·         Clean Closets: Make sure your closets and drawers are neatly arranged. It just gives an impression of order within the household. Cluttered closets symbolize chaos and give a wrong impression of your house to buyers.

 

·         Light: Make sure that you have your curtains drawn to let in enough natural light. Use natural light as far as possible. Artificial lighting can be used to enhance the interiors of your house, but just relying on artificial lighting gives a gloomy impression.

 

·         Leave your house: Let the agents do the showing around. If someone has come to view your house that they might buy for a huge sum of money, they want to have a look at it well. In the presence of its current residents, viewers cannot frankly view the house well. They cannot open and inspect each cabinet.

 

·         Clean yard: Make sure your yard is clean and tidy as well. As with beds and closets, this too plays a major role in forming a good impression.

 

·         Be Accessible: You may have a very erratic schedule, but you must make sure that you are available for prospective buyers whenever they have to make a phone call to you to ask you things about your house. This is one way in which you can ensure your house gets sold quickly. Keep your agent or Realtor abreast of the kind of schedule you follow.

 

·         Dogs and pets: Take your dog for a walk. People who come to view your house may not be very impressed by your animal. On the contrary, if they do not like animals, they may feel uncomfortable, and be unable to inspect your house well.

 

·         Smell: Make sure your house does not stink under any circumstances. It is a major put off.

 

·         Check Regularly: You must inspect your own house to see everything is in place, especially the above items. Do a regular check up, may be once a week. Arrange the closets, mow the yard. Make sure everything looks vibrant and happy. Never, however, give a false impression. Show your house just as it is, reflecting all the good times you have spent there.

Above all make sure to price your home right.  Do not overprice your home in the hopes that an offer will come and the buyer will negoitate a better price.  It will not happen in this market especially.   This is a buyer’s market meaning there is a lot of competition.  The buyer will simply not look at your home, so it is very important to follow the checklist and to price your home right.

Even Fannie Mae is Time Conscience

The number of homeowners in default has led Fannie Mae to experiment with a pre-approval process for a short sale prior to getting an offfer on the property.

If this test works, it will reduce the time necessary to get the short sale approved and make the concept of a short sale more attractive for the seller, Realtor, and more importantly the potential buyer.  Often times,  buyers have passed and not put offer in on homes that were subject to a short sale approval due in part to the longevidity of getting the offer approved.  I am sure that Fannie Mae may have discovered as many Realtor have that the longevidity contributes greatly to the attempted short sale often times going into foreclosure.  When this happens the lender now has the added risk of losing more money by the value being exposed to the downward trend in market value. 

This experiment is hoped to yield a closing process that is closer to that of a traditional conventional mortgage or FHA loan.  Both products can take up to 30 to 45 days to close were as the short sale have taken as long as eight weeks. 

Lastly, this new concept is being experimented upon in hopes to move the market to an upward trend by reducing the amount of properties that are on the market for sale.