Selling Your Home: 3 Must-Knows Before You List

Sometimes the hardest part of selling a home is making the decision to sell it. Our homes give us roots, provide sanctuary, house memories and, hopefully, give us some financial security. It's a huge decision to sell a home.

Once made, however, additional decisions will come fast and furious, so take some time now, before the frenzy, to understand three salient points about the successful sale of a home in today's real estate marketplace.

What is Market Value?

One of the most challenging aspects of selling a home is determining the list price. Many homeowners will go online to find homes nearby that are for sale and base their price assumption on those that are most similar.

The list price of a home, however, is a fantasy. It represents an amount of money the seller thinks, or hopes the home will bring. Until the home sells, he may be right or he may be wrong.

Buyers set market value for homes in Shreveport / Bossier. What a knowledgeable, willing, and unpressured buyer pays for a home is the home's true market value. Therefore, when pricing a home for the market, one must always look at the sold prices of similar homes nearby.

This is the method both real estate agents and appraisers use when determining a home's market value.

First Impressions Matter

Think back to when you were house hunting. Were there houses that you arrived at that you just couldn't bear to get out of the car to look at? Chipped or peeling paint, sagging window and door screens, and overgrown or dead landscaping do not make a good first impression.

Before you do anything else, clean your house, inside and out. Make cosmetic repairs, especially outdoors where the house makes its first impression. Even if it's merely a new coat of paint on the front door, shiny new house numbers and some fresh mulch in the planting beds, it may help folks want to see more.

Don't neglect the interior either. If you don't know where to start, take a look at some websites with ideas on how to declutter and stage the home.

Don't Attempt This on Your Own

I know what you're thinking: Of course a real estate agent is going to tell me not to take the for-sale-by-owner route. So, I won't ask you to take just my word for it. Let's look at the cold, hard numbers.

First, only 9 percent of homeowners attempt to sell their homes without the aid of an agent, according to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR). Of those, almost half said they took this route because they were selling their home to someone they knew.

The next most commonly stated reason that a homeowner gave for not using an agent was that he or she didn't want to pay the real estate commission. That's understandable when one isn't sure exactly what an agent does to get a home sold. Once you get a look at that list, you'll understand that you definitely get what you pay for.

You should also take into consideration the fact that a home that is for sale by the owner is considered a bargain to most homebuyers. Many will walk in expecting you to kick back some of that money you're saving by not using an agent. This is why, according to NAR, homes sold by agents sell for 16 percent more than those sold by owner.

Selling a home is a big deal and, thankfully, something we don't often do. When it's time to sell yours, start with the basics, as outlined above, and you'll be ready to list your home before you know it.

How to Depersonalize Your Home for Sale

Making the decision to sell your home begins a journey of a thousand steps. From hiring a real estate agent to getting the home ready for the market, there is a lot to do.

Luckily, homeowners have a tool belt full of items that make the job easier. The most powerful tool of them all is decorating – better known as staging. Done right, staging your home will help it sell faster and for more money.

Before you hire a decorator, or decide to do it yourself, you'll need an appropriate backdrop – a clean, uncluttered space. Otherwise, staging the home is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Why Declutter?

There are several reasons homeowners should clear their homes of the clutter accumulated from daily living. First, clutter makes people anxious.

The results of a nine-year long UCLA study show that there is "real psychological stress associated with clutter."

The last thing you want a potential buyer to feel is stress or anxiety when touring your home.

Since most clutter in a home is a collection of personal items, depersonalizing the home goes hand-in-hand with clearing clutter. Sure, all those personal items are what makes your house a home, but too many of them may hinder its sale.

Buyers need to be able to imagine what it would be like living in your home, surrounded by their belongings. Your stuff detracts from their ability to do that.

Depersonalizing: What's Involved?

Depersonalizing is the act of removing most items of a personal nature. Family photographs, souvenirs, collections, DVD and CD collections and framed diplomas, degrees and awards are a few examples of items to pack up and store.

Getting Started

Since you'll need boxes for the move, buying them now saves work later on. Buy several boxes for each room in the house, and don't forget newspaper or other packing material to protect breakables.

The best way to go about depersonalizing the home is to do it one room at a time.

Living Room and Family Room

Since this is where families spend most of their time, these rooms will most likely take the longest. Items to remove include:

Toy bins or boxes.

Toys (including pet toys).

Family photos.

DVDs, video games and CDs.

Excess magazines and catalogs.

Newspapers.

Craft items.

Clothing.

Kitchen

Now we move from the most challenging room to the easiest room to depersonalize – the kitchen. The biggest clutter catcher in this room is the refrigerator. Remove the magnets, sticky note reminders, kids' artwork and personal photographs. In fact, remove everything from the front, sides and top of the refrigerator. Unless it's decorative, pack it all up.

Many families use the kitchen counter as a mail drop. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but mail is highly personal and needs to be put away, out of sight.

Bedrooms

Since bedrooms are the most personal of all the spaces in a home, they can be challenging to depersonalize. Remove family photos, of course, but you may need to go beyond that. Imagine a posh hotel room and remove anything from the bedrooms that you wouldn't find in one.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms tend to become cluttered with personal products. While it isn't necessary to pack these items up, it is crucial that they be put out of sight in cupboards and drawers.

Don't forget the shower stall or bathtub. Buyers will pull back the shower curtain. Would you want to be greeted by pumice stones, shampoo bottles or kids' water toys? Again, think of a posh hotel bathroom and try to imitate that look.

Home Office

The home office is typically one of the most cluttered rooms in the home and also a hot selling feature, so it's important to create a vignette that appeals to the target market for the home.

Attack the walls first, taking down awards, diplomas and degrees, and photos.

Clear the desk of mail, work papers and professional journals and magazines.

As you work on depersonalizing each room in the home, don't just throw the items in the boxes. Wrap and pack for the move and then take the boxes to a storage facility.

Don't forget to organize what's left in the room – it puts you one step closer to staging the home.


Feeling a little overwhelmed by the home selling process?  Talk with your real estate agent.  He can help with every stage of the process to take the stress out of selling your home.

Interest Rates on the Rise

You may have heard the rumors that the federal reserve may quit buying bonds. This seems to be a point of some speculation, but interest rates have begun to rise nonetheless and are not likely to go back down.

So, what does this mean for the real estate market?

For Buyers, this means that on a $100,000 loan the payment would go up $30.00 per month just for principal and interest for a total of $10,800 over a 30 year period.  On a $200,000 loan these numbers double.  Buyers should consider locking in their rates if they have not already done so.  There could be a cost to lock in which is dependent on the lender and length of the lock in.  Contact your real estate agent to discuss what this means and to get more information.

For Sellers, the impact is much greater.  It is possible some potential buyers may be lost because the payment has gone up.  If selling and purchasing a new home at the same time, consider dropping the asking price.  If the asking price is dropped by $3000 and then the new home is purchased, this would save approximately $18,600 because they would have gotten the locked in interest rate on the purchase of their new home. 

The statement "now is the time to buy" has never been more true.  Rates will most likely continue to rise and may never be below 4% again.  Contact your real estate agent today find out more about what this means for you and to discuss your options.