How do you make your Columbia SC home stand out among the many other homes your prospective buyers may see before making an offer? Homeowners are still struggling to sell their homes, even with the real estate market improving. Use these tips to help your Columbia SC home be more appealing to those who may be looking to purchase in this highly competitive market.
Ways to Make Your Columbia SC Home Stand Out From the Crowd
Renovate
If your home isn’t catching the eyes of buyers, it might need some work. A high-priced kitchen remodel to entice buyers probably isn’t a great idea, but replacing damaged base boards, worn carpet and dead shrubbery are essential renovations in today’s real estate market. These types of renovations don’t have to break your budget, and can be low dollar items that return a higher dollar sale.
Make a Video
Before listing your Columbia SC home, make a detailed video that shows the interior and exterior of your home. Include closets, areas behind doors, the fence and all of the other less visible features. Then, view your video and think like a buyer. What do you see that might cause you to lose interest if you weren’t the owner of the home? Show the video to friends and family, and ask them to give you their candid opinions and comments. The smallest details are sometimes the difference between a buyer making an offer or moving on to the next home for sale.
Weekday Open House
Weekends are full of open houses. Not only are there more weekend open houses than there are prospective buyers, an increasing number of people work on the weekends to make some extra money. A weekday open house cuts down on the competition, and an evening time may allow parents to view your home after work when their kids are at a sports practice or other activity.
Be Pro-Active
Even if your real estate agent is advertising your Columbia SC home and working hard, two people marketing your home is better than one. Put your home on your Facebook page, Craigslist, Twitter and other social media sites. Post flyers on company-approved bulletin boards and talk to local family and friends. Most people would rather buy from somebody they know and trust. You’ll still have to pay your real estate agent a commission, but if you’re desperate to sell, take an active role in the marketing process.
Lower the Price
If your Columbia SC home isn’t generating any interest or getting any offers, it’s probably time to lower your asking price. Real estate agents will help you to set your initial price based on comparable homes in your market, but in the end, their analysis is just an educated guess. Always keep the price higher than the lowest price you’re willing to accept. This allows for room to negotiate.
Selling a Columbia SC home is still difficult. It will take meticulous attention to detail and a strategy to make it stand out from the many other homes that prospective buyers will see before making their choices. Call us or contact us here for more information on selling your Columbia SC home. We have more tips to help you sell your home at our site. Just click the link to Columbia SC Home Selling Tips to the right under Categories.
Getting your Columbia SC house ready to sell can be nerve racking. Here are some tips to help you make the process a lot easier on yourself and help you get top dollar for your home.
Let Go of Your Columbia SC House
The first thing you need to do is “Let Go” of your Columbia SC house. You have to resolve yourself to the fact that this will no longer be your home. You should envision yourself saying good-bye to the house now, and imagine handing over the keys to the new buyer.
De-personalize now by packing up your personal items before you even put the for sale sign in the yard. You don’t want, or need, the prospects looking at your home to questioning who lives there. You want them to envision themselves living there. The last thing you need is to have your prospects diverted with all your “stuff”.
Although this should be obvious, give your Columbia SC house a comprehensive cleaning. Along with de-cluttering and de-personalizing, go ahead and remove items you don’t plan to carry over to the new house. Remove books from bookcases and pack up small knicknacks just lying around. Clean off almost everything from your kitchen counters. Take vital items you’ll still need to use while the home is for sale and put them in a closet or in drawers. Don’t leave them sitting around.
Clean out your closets and cabinets. You’ll have to do it anyway before you move, so go ahead and clean it out now. Would-be buyers will be looking in there. If everything is neat and orderly, prospects will appreciate that you’ve taken care of the little things, and will assume you’ve also taken care of the bigger and more important things as well.
Consider renting a storage facility to further help you de-clutter, by moving excess furniture there until moving day. Go ahead and store those bookshelves (since you’ve packed up the books anyway) and remove extra sections of your dining room table to help the room look larger. Leave only necessary furniture so the buyers can more easily envision their furniture in the house.
Remove anything you know you’re going to want to take with you so the prospective buyers won’t be wanting to haggle with you over leaving it as part of the sale of the home. This includes window treatments as well.
These are just a few of the things you need to do to get your Columbia SC house ready to sell. We have other home selling tips here at our website. Just browse the Columbia SC Home Selling Tips for more ideas and helpful information on getting your Columbia SC house ready to sell.
When is the best time to buy or sell a Columbia SC house? That’s an age-old question that many buyers and sellers have been seeking an answer to for years. 
As more and more people are thinking about wading back into the real estate market, both buyers and sellers, are again asking the question, when is the best time?
Best Time to Buy a Columbia SC House
The best month to make an offer on a home is January. Fewer buyers are willing to house-hunt during cold, nasty weather, so there’s less competition and few, if any, bidding wars. Sellers also tend to be more motivated than they will be in the spring, when there are more buyers. Why? They may have just received their credit card bills that reflect Christmas spending and may be feeling financially strapped. And their decision to try to sell their houses in the winter means they’re willing to risk listing during a time of the year when properties tend not show particularly well.
Best Time to Sell a Columbia SC House
The best time to be selling a Columbia SC house is in the Spring. Buyers come out of the woodwork during the spring, and with tax refund checks in the bank or in the mail, spring buyers more often pay full price. In fact, sales peak in the spring, helping to explain why about 60% of those who move do so in the summer.
Best Time to Buy Instead of Rent
The best time to stop renting and buy a house is when it costs less to buy than to rent. But how do you figure that out?
Find two similar houses – one for sale and one for rent – and divide the asking price by the annual rent. The difference is called the rent ratio. During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the nationwide rent ratio stayed between 10 and 14, then rose to nearly 19 in 2006, when the housing market topped out. A rent ratio of 20 or more usually means that it costs considerably more to own than rent after you factor in the mortgage, taxes, insurance, repairs and other expenses. It makes financial sense to buy when the rent ratio is a lot closer to 10 than to 20.
If you need help trying to figure out the best time to be buying or selling a Columbia SC house, give us a call. We’ll be happy to sit down with you for a no-obligation consultation, based on your particular needs. As with buying shoes, buying a Columbia SC house is not a “one size fits all” thing. Everyone’s circumstances are different, and so might the timing for you be different. We’ll be happy to help you decide the best time of the year for you, whether you’re buying or selling.