Preparing Your Home for a Sale in 2021

 

2021 has certainly been a crazy year so far. Maybe not as wild as last year, but with the direction the housing market has been going, it’s giving 2020 a run for its money. If you are one of the many people looking to take advantage of the high sale prices but don’t know how to go about it, our article on preparing your home for a sale in 2021 might just be what you’re looking for.

Hire a Realtor

Since houses are flying off the market right now, some people think that they can get away with not having a realtor. However, this will be one of the most significant transactions of your entire life. Unfortunately, homes don’t sell themselves, so hiring a professional to help you out will be beneficial in the long run.

Don’t cheap out on one, either. You’re already going to be making more money than your house was worth a year or so ago, so make sure you use that extra cash to hire the best. That way, it’ll be a smooth sale without any unnecessary hiccups.

Research Other Homes

The biggest factor in preparing your home for a sale in 2021 is deciding how much to sell it for. There’s obviously not a straightforward answer for this, but if you look up similar homes online, you will be able to see which houses are selling, which ones aren’t, and how much each type is going for. If you’ve already hired a realtor, they will be able to help you with pricing your home.

If you’re in a rush to sell your home, you might need to lower your house’s cost in order to grab someone’s attention. If you want to milk it for all it’s currently worth, be aware that it will take some more time.

Clean Up the House

Whether you’re taking pictures for your listing or getting the place ready for its first showing, you’ll need to make sure that each room is spotless. People judge more than they should if a room isn’t up to par on the cleanliness scale. Some things this might involve are:

• Getting rid of any bad smells in the house.
• Touching up the paint on your walls.
• Making small repairs when necessary.
• Removing your pets from the premises.

Some of these may seem a bit extreme or hard to pull off in a short amount of time, but the more cleaning you do, the better your chances of a sale are.

Depersonalize Your Home

While the process of depersonalization is similar to cleaning, its purpose is way different. Most people project their ideas for their future home onto what is already there, but that’s difficult to do if too many of your personal items are lying around.

For example, you may love your quirky-looking couch, but the people looking at your house probably won’t. As a result, it might make it more difficult for them to see themselves living there in the future. To fix this, you can throw a plain colored slipcover over it. Slipcovers have quite a few uses for house showings, but doing something like this can be what makes the sale instead of breaking it.