Buying and selling a house can be a challenging ordeal even for seasoned experts. Thus, as a first-time home seller, your worries are absolutely justified. There are a number of things to consider when selling a house, and you need to keep them all in mind to close the perfect deal. You don’t have to worry your head over it, though, as we’re bringing you the top tips for a first-time home seller that will help you streamline and organise the process.
The Best Tips for First-Time Home Sellers
Trying to sell a house for the first time can be scary and confusing, but you’ll be able to ace the challenge with the help of our real estate tips for sellers. Here are the top things to consider when selling a house for the very first time:
- Know your goals
- Research the market
- Hire the right realtor
- Price it right
- Stage your home
- Take some high-quality photos
- Review your listing online
- Be flexible about home viewings
- Respond to every offer
- Be open to negotiations
- Follow a set timeline
- Plan ahead for contingencies
These 12 tips for a first-time home seller will be your guide and help you know just what to do next as you venture into the world of buying and selling houses. We’ll elaborate a bit more on each point below.
Know Your Goals
People consider selling their house due to several external factors, and only you can decide if it’s the right time to sell your house. The most commons reasons include a change in job or relocation and growing or shrinking needs of the family. You might also simply want to consider selling vs. renovating an old home, based on the amount of money you spend on repairs every month. The point here is to know and understand the end goals of why you want to sell your house and to move forward accordingly.
Research the Market
One of the top tips for selling a home is to research the market and to determine whether it’s the right time to put your house on the market. Is it a buyers’ market or a sellers’ market these days? Are people looking to make investments in real estate, or are they opting to secure their investment elsewhere? Is the economy stable enough for people to take calculated risks on real estate? Knowing the ground realities of the real estate market in Pakistan will help you make an informed decision on when it would be best to put your house up for sale.
Hire the Right Realtor
It is rare for first-time home sellers to have a reliable real estate agent at hand to manage the sale. If you do have a trustworthy agent in your contacts list, reach out to them, and hire them to have a look at the house and the process you have in mind. If you’re unsure about who to hire, ask for referrals from family and friends, conduct some interviews, and NEVER hire the first person that’s available for the job. There are some clear warning signs that indicate that you’ve hired the wrong agent, and some small tips can help you find the best agents as well. So, make your decision wisely!
Price It Right
Part of conducting market research is knowing how much your property is really worth at present. Your research, your agent’s input, selling rates of neighbouring properties, and many other factors affect a property’s value. It’s up to you to put your home on the market for the right amount. One of the top real estate tips for sellers with regards to pricing their home is to ensure that the price is competitive with other properties that are in the same neighbourhood and have the same features. Overpricing your house is one of the biggest mistakes made by home sellers.
Stage Your Home
Home staging is a real estate concept where you depersonalise your home, remove all the clutter, perform some necessary repairs, and make it ready for a new buyer. Now, you might wonder why this is one of the most important things to consider when selling a house before a sale has even been finalised. Well, if you’ve already bought a new house and are planning to move soon, you probably know how to inspect a house from a buyer’s perspective. In case you don’t, let us highlight the main idea behind staging.
Buyers look at potential houses and wonder how their furniture, their belongings, and their lifestyle will fit into it. This is why sellers are generally advised to remove as much of their own style statements as possible. This gives buyers a blank canvas to work with. They can let their imagination take them away and see how life would be like in the home that they’re visiting.
Take Some High-Quality Photos
One reason why home staging is necessary is that it allows you to take the best possible photos for your real estate listing. While you can choose to hire a professional photographer for the job, you can also take the photos yourself if you have a good camera and a steady hand. Make your residence look as nice and as inviting as you can for the best offers.
Review Your Listing Online
Another one of the many tips for a first-time home seller is to recheck and review the listing after your agent has put it online. While you may have communicated all of the essential points to the agent and they’ll do their best to create an exact image of your house in the description of the listing, ultimately, it’s your home, and you know it best. So, review all the facts and ensure that you’re not misquoting any details that may mislead potential buyers. You can use listing websites like Zameen.com, which is Pakistan’s top property portal, to ensure that your listing reaches the maximum number of interested buyers and investors.
Be Flexible about Home Viewings
Along with the top tips for selling a home, here’s a suggestion: BE patient and flexible with people who want to visit/view/tour your home. Most homebuyers will not close the deal until they’ve visited the property personally, so don’t lose out on a great sale potential by being rigid on when they can visit your house, especially if you or your agent have not communicated these specifications to them in the initial stages of the conversation.
Respond to Every Offer
No matter how low or bad the offer might be, responding to offers keeps you on your toes and gives you a better experience on how to tackle sales offers. Be polite, brief, and precise when you decide to decline an offer and do so in writing when possible.
Be Open to Negotiations
Our real estate tips for sellers also include a word of advice for you. You want to sell the house for the best possible price, but you need to be flexible with respect to the selling price of the house. Mark out a price below which you will not sell, but remain flexible between your absolute price and quoted price. Negotiate smartly if you think you’ve found the perfect buyer for your house.
Follow a Set Timeline
Most home sellers are on a tight budget and a strict timeline because, more often than not, they’ll be using the money from the sale to put in a down payment on their new home. As such, not only do you need to plan for your moving day in advance, but you will also need to have a tentative date in mind, by which you must close the sale to avoid financial grievances and delays.
Plan Ahead for Contingencies
While you must always consider your own timeline for the sale of the house, the real estate market is unexpected and full of surprises. Often, you’ll end up waiting for a transaction that isn’t happening. This is why you need to have a contingency plan in place. What will do you if you can’t make the sale? How will you afford the down payment on a new property? What if the new buyer needs the home immediately, and you’re not getting possession of your property by then? Do you have a relative with whom you can stay for a few days? There are dozens of possibilities and eventualities, and you need to plan for as many as you can, so you’re all set to counter the situation.
First-time home sellers often end up overlooking the finer details associated with the selling process, which is why they find home buying and selling to be so troublesome. These tips for a first-time home seller will come to your aid and help you prepare yourself for the process with practical steps, so you can close a profitable and successful sale.
Check out our detailed Area Guides for Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad to continue your search for your first home.
Stay tuned to Zameen Blog for more property buying and selling blogs. Email us at blog@zameen.com if you have any queries.
