Columbia SC Home Selling Tips

Staging Your Home: Things You Can DoIn today’s tough real estate market, you must do things to make your home stand out from the crowd. Home Staging has become a popular way to make your home stand out from the crowded listing inventory.

When we hear the word “Staging”, we tend to automatically think that means we need someone else to come in and decorate, and add even more costs to the expense column when it comes to selling a property. But this is not the case. You can do some things yourself to improve your chances of selling your home.

  1. Set your listing price by utilizing area comparables, not based upon what you need to get for your home.
  2. Repair squeaky doors, chipped or smudged paint as well as broken fixtures and fittings that you’ve neglected.
  3. Get rid of worn carpets, and consider refinishing shabby hardwood floors. An inexpensive new area rug is a quick fix and can disguise the look of old floors.
  4. Invest in a fresh coat of paint and get 150 percent green back on your investment.
  5. Fix all running toilets, or risk flushing profits down the drain.
  6. Remember that “outside” is the new “inside.” Show off all of your living spaces. It’s your first chance to make a good impression, so you’ve got to make it count.
  7. Renew the look of rooms by replacing old or dated light fixtures, door hardware, light switches and outlets.
  8. Grind a lemon in the garbage disposal – it smells great and it’s cheaper than air freshner.
  9. Display the kind of plants that aren’t injection-molded and painted in a factory somewhere.
  10. Make things sparkle. Remember that people will look in your cupboards, under your sinks and in your closets. Mop, dust, vacuum, wash windows, baseboards, and anything else that a potential buyer may see as a turn-off.

Paying attention to these few things will help you be ahead of the crowd when potential buyers compare your home against others for sale.

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.

Although nobody’s perfect, it’s important to be as perfect as possible when selling your home. That will increase the likelihood that you can have success selling it. Here are some helpful tips to give you the best chance to sell your Columbia SC area home:

  1. Never avoid doing necessary repairs
    You won’t necessarily need to take out a second mortgage to fix up your home before putting it on the market. However, you can certainly do some basic home improvements to enhance your home’s condition. That includes new carpeting, new gas or water pipes, interior or exterior paint, and so on. Speaking of the interior and exterior of your home, remember that both are important when you put your home on the market. Increasing your home’s curb-side appeal will make it more marketable.
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  2. Never set the price too low
    This is yet another mistake that homeowners often make when they put their home on the market. The problem is that taking this step could significantly reduce your profit margin. In fact, if you set the price too low you’ll have no profit margin at all. The best way to avoid setting your home’s price too low is to find out its actual market value before you put it on the market.
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  3. Never hire an inexperienced real estate agent
    It’s important that the real estate agent you pick has a reasonable amount of experience. He or she doesn’t necessarily need 20 years experience selling homes. But you should also probably avoid hiring a newbie. One effective method is to get personal referrals for real estate agents. Whichever method you take to find a the right agent, always compare a minimum of three. That will help to increase the likelihood of finding the right one. You should also check the credentials of a particular real estate agent before choosing him or her.
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  4. Never set your home’s price too high
    Many experts say this is the biggest mistake you can make when putting your home on the market. It’s a particularly bad idea today due to the amount of information that’s available to home shoppers. Here’s what often happens. If a shopper knows your home is much higher than its market value, then he or she will offer an extremely low price. That will likely anger you, which will likely result in the home not being sold. When pricing your home, it’s important to consider several factors to calculate its market value. That will help to determine an accurate price for your home.
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  5. Never market your home inefficiently
    Setting the right price for your home is a crucial step for selling your home. But that won’t mean much if you don’t market it effectively. The good news is, you can use several effective methods for maximizing the chance of selling your home. Talk to us about some of these marketing methods. Also, keep in mind that the process of marketing lasts until you actually sell your home.

Avoiding the above mistakes will help you sell your Columbia SC area home sooner rather than later (or never).

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.

These days, when it’s tougher than ever to sell a house, homeowners are turning to renting as a way out.

Renting may be a good option when you can’t sell, but not everybody is cut out to be a landlord. And while renting may seem like an easy short-term fix, it may not be a long-term solution.

Make sure you consider all the factors before deciding whether renting will solve your problems…or create more.

Problems With Renting Your House

While you may have excellent reasons for renting your house, consider the following before giving up on selling your house.

Buying Another Home – Leaving equity behind in your house may prevent you from purchasing a new house.

Property Management – Managing receipts, maintenance, repairs, emergencies, and other requirements associated with renting requires time, money, and effort. You can choose to do it yourself or you can choose a property manager to do it for you.

Market Recovery or Market Bust – It may take longer than you think for real estate prices to recover. Right now, the economy remains weak. Downward pressure on home values will continue for the foreseeable future. Who can say how much longer or steeper prices will sink before an eventual upswing. Once the market is on an upward trajectory, it will take years for prices to return to previous highs.

Depreciation – While the IRS allows you to take deprecation as an expense against rental income, don’t think of ‘depreciation’ as only a tax deduction good for improving cash flow. Since tenants are unlikely to treat your home as well as you would, physical depreciation is a very real aspect of turning your home over to tenants.

Capital Gains Taxes – If you rent your house for only two years, you can still sell your house and be exempt from paying IRS taxes on up to $250,000 of capital gain (when single) or $500,000 (when married). However, the depreciation you took against rental income may have to be recaptured. Be sure to consult your tax accountant.

Re-lease or Try to Sell Again – In this climate, you’ll find tenants quickly. Once the first year’s lease is over, you’ll have to decide whether to continue renting your house or try selling. Either way, you’ll have to invest in cleaning, painting, landscaping, replacing carpet, upgrading appliances, and making repairs before the next tenants or buyers move in.

Damaged Goods – When you’re ready to sell, your house may be considered ‘damaged goods’. Homebuyers can immediately tell if a house has been lovingly cared for or simply lived in. And they will take this into consideration when making offers.

Selling With Tenants in Place – Let’s face it, tenants don’t care if you sell your house or not. They don’t have a stake in the outcome. They only know it disrupts their schedule. They won’t keep the house as neat and clean as you would. They won’t be as flexible to accommodate showing appointments as you would. And they may hang around the house during showings, making homebuyers uncomfortable and eager to leave. Once their lease is up, you’ll find yourself in a negative cash-flow position and may very well be forced to rent once more.

Rental Merry-Go-Round – After renting your house for what was supposed to be no more than a year or two … just until the market turned around … could turn into a long-term commitment. You may get stuck on the rental merry-go-round, unable to jump off. The window between leases will leave you with only a short time to list and sell your house. Before you know it, you’ll be back on the rental merry-go-round, still waiting for the opportunity to unload a monumental burden.

Rental Prices May Go Down – Right now rental prices are what they are, and they may be just fine for your needs. But renting your house as a short-term solution may not be a long-term solution. With so many homeowners turning to renting as an expedient to selling, tenants will have more homes to pick from. In time, instead of facing a ‘Buyer’s Market’ on the selling end, you may very well face a ‘Renter’s Market’ on the rental end. Such a circumstance would drive rents down year to year. After factoring in rising insurance rates and property taxes, you may eventually find yourself in a negative cash-flow position.

Mortgage Rates – Mortgage rates are the lowest they’ve been in recent history. But they can’t stay low forever. When the economy recovers, the Federal Reserve will start raising key interest rates. Mortgage rates will climb in lockstep, making homeownership more expensive. To make up for higher monthly costs, buyers will bargain that much harder, forcing prices down once again.

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.

Do you want to sell your home right away? Don’t be tempted by “We Buy Houses” or “Sell Your House in 9 days for Cash” ads, signs and billboards.

Savvy real estate investors run these ads and put up posters looking for sellers under duress. These investors want to make the money you earned for holding your home. Investors only want to pay you up to seventy percent of the (low end) market value. Many investors who studied late night infomercial real estate scams want you to be their bank and carry the financing.

You do not need to be at the mercy of these scavengers. Selling your home is stressful enough without worrying about getting a fair price.

Follow these tips for getting fair market value for your home quickly.

For Sellers with No Money to Spend:

  • Start at the street and clean up the weeds
  • Remove dead plants and trim overgrown limbs
  • Plant brown spots with cuttings of ground cover from friends
  • Remove empty pots and containers or fill with cuttings
  • Wash the windows
  • Inside, take down tatty window coverings
  • Pack personal effects: family photos, memorabilia, magazine piles
  • Open window coverings, let the sunshine in
  • Air your home out
  • Get rid of excess furniture, especially pieces with holes
  • Hold a yard sale and use the money to buy flowers
  • After a thorough purging and cleaning, your shining home is ready to sell!

For Sellers with a Little Cash:

  • Spend your money wisely on enhancements that boost net proceeds
  • Freshen paint
  • Fix everything you possibly can
  • Use Design and Marketing Psychology to stage your home

Redecorating your home and adding upgrades for the potential buyer’s profile brings you the greatest return for your money. Then, you retain your equity and sell your home at full market value to a motivated buyer.

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.

In the process of selling a home, the single most important item to address is pricing. Pricing a home has several factors which must be addressed in order for the outcome to result in successfully attracting a buyer. This is especially true due to the fact that most local markets are experiencing what is termed a “buyer’s market.”

A “buyer’s market” is, in simple terms, one in which there are more homes for sale than there are buyers for those homes; basically a glut on the market. This can occur when the banking industry experiences a record number of homes they have in foreclosure. In this case, these foreclosed homes have saturated the real estate market, increasing inventory beyond the market. Another factor may be that people who are currently renting are hesitant to commit to a long term mortgage, even at lower interest rates, because of job instability.

What this means to someone who is attempting to sell a home is that the asking price must fall within the range of what a buyer will pay for a home in a specific location. This “magic” price is determined by the following statistical facts:

  • comparison of asking price of other, similar and non-similar, homes that are in the vicinity of the subject home
  • comparison of actual sold price of other similar and non-similar, homes in the vicinity of the subject home that successfully closed escrow
  • how many homes are currently on the market that are comparable to the subject home
  • how long other homes in the vicinity of the subject property have been on the market
  • location of the subject home
  • condition of the home

A seller’s true competition is the other homes on the market. By looking at the asking price of other homes, it can be determined what the current competition is. Upon analyzing competition, whenever possible it is best to come in slightly under asking prices of the other homes if at all possible. This places the seller’s home in the primary position when buyers are making their lists of the best priced homes. It is a mistaken belief that buyers and sellers are in an adversarial position. In actuality, a buyer and a seller want the same thing.

The actual sold price of other homes provides guidance as to how much the market will bear for the property. It is best to look at homes that are the same style, similar amenities, and within the same area as the subject home, but not absolutely necessary, especially in today’s market. Buyers are looking for the best deal, not necessarily a particular style. The actual sold data is the strongest indicator as to how to price a home to sell.

There are a couple of helpful pointers when reviewing how long other homes have been on the market: those that are currently active on the market, those that have received a contract on them but have not closed escrow, and those that have closed escrow. This number, termed “days on market” or “DOM,” provide information on an estimated time it will take to sell the home. This figure needs to be analyzed with the asking price history.

The location and condition of a home are generally the easiest to consider.  If the home is located in a desirable area, but is in poor condition, or vice-versa, it will have an impact on the price.

In essence, you need to tie the contributing facts together, starting with the hopeful sale price based on other listings, then what they are actually selling for, and the volume of houses in your price range, and neighborhood. Then, throw in the desirability and condition of your home, and your price will finally be set. This takes some patience and courage, but the final result will be more showings which means more potential for a successful sale.

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.