Tips on how to Sell, Buy and List your property

When it comes to property, first impressions count, so make sure yours is looking its absolute best. Making the most of your home doesn’t have to cost a fortune, and a few inexpensive improvements can make all the difference.

Put yourself in the shoes of a potential buyer and, starting from the pavement outside, take a complete tour of the property. Work out a plan of action, and if necessary, draft in a friend or an objective other for a second opinion – you’ll be amazed at the cracks and crevices, often that have gone unnoticed for years, that suddenly come to light.

Once you’ve made a list of what needs to be done, work out a budget and priorities accordingly. There’s no point throwing money at making unnecessary changes at this stage, so keep things in perspective.

If your landscaping isn’t that great, spend the money on new plants to make it look appealing. The buyer has to see themselves living in the property, so make it a paradise.

Kerb appeal is essential because many prospective buyers may only drive by your home. Getting them back a second time will depend on their first impression, so make sure the outside is looking its absolute best; keep refuse bins out of sight, and, if it needs it, give the front door a fresh coat of paint. Clean up any paint issues on the interior of the property including behind doors, in closets and so on. This may sound odd, but buyers will look in every little cranny. You’re effectively in competition with other homes in the area, so it pays to find out from your local estate agent what will make yours shine – a new worktop in the kitchen might be all that it takes.

Make your home as warm and inviting as possible, because more than most major purchases, people buy homes according to their emotions. That process begins by making your home feel homey without feeling cluttered.

Doing up a house for sale is all about marketing a lifestyle so always keep your buyer in mind when making any changes.

Once the property is clean and looks ready to sell (remember, you are trying to impress potential buyers!), create a listing. Getting a free listing on this site will expose your property to hundreds of thousands of buyers including people considering moving into your area. Most sellers fail to recognize that one of the largest pools of buyers are people relocating from one part of the country to another. This is where realtor MLS listings fail miserably. They simply do not expose your home to the correct market, making the sale of the property a long process.Many homebuyers use the Internet to find a home.Because when listing your home for sale, you’ll be able to provide a bevy of information to potential buyers. Essentially, you’ll get to provide everything you would in a typical MLS listing such as bedrooms, bathrooms, garages, appliances, price, square footage, contact information and so on.

Ten Tips For Selling Your House

One of the biggest mistakes people make when selling a house is not understanding real estate value. It doesn’t matter at all what you think your home is worth. The value of your home and any improvements you made is determined by buyers. What you enjoyed about your house is irrelevant when it’s time to sell it. Think in terms of what other people want, and use some of the following tips.

House Selling Tips

1. Know your market. Find out what other similar houses have sold for, and have those examples ready to show potential buyers.

2. Decide on your minimum price – the price below which you will just not move. Don’t tell your agent what this minimum is, but work with any buyers who make an offer above it.

3. Clean the most visible things first. Buy a new mailbox, perhaps. If buyers fall in love with the house before they even enter it, they’ll forgive a lot of problems.

4. Clean up the neighborhood. If there’s a neighbor who’s yard is a mess, give their kids $10 to pick up the yard. Spend another $20 to put flowers in any common-areas, and buyers will have a better first impression of the neighborhood.

5. If you or your agent aren’t getting many calls, find out why. Is more advertising necessary, or is the price too high? Drop it fast, if price is the problem.

6. Listen to comments of prospects. They will be more objective than you. If you hear several times that the kitchen is dark, get out the white paint.

7. Find out what the average sales time is in your area. If your house is taking longer than average to sell, there is a problem. Usually it’s price.

8. Be sure to ask your real estate agent what they plan to do – before you sign a listing agreement. Write down what he says, and hold him to his promises.

9. If there are any known problems, such as an old roof, get an estimate for repairs. The sellers may want a $7,000 allowance for a new roof – until you show them your $4,000 estimate.

10. Do any improvements that can realisically get you at least a two-to-one return on investment. If $300 to seal the driveway is likely to add $600 to the sales price of the home, do it. Consider first those things that are most visible.

There are dozens of things you can do to sell your house faster, and get a better price. If you don’t have time to do them all, start with the ones that will get the most “bang for your buck.”

Ten Real Estate Investing Tips

Real estate investing tips tend to be a bit vague, like “invest in the right location,” or “make sure the numbers work.” Actually, tips like these are important principles to remember. However, since they have been well represented in other articles, I want to share a few more specific tips with you.

1. Listen to the market. The cabinet guy looked to me for a decision. I realized that I knew nothing at all about which cabinets people like, so I asked him which ones others were choosing, and he pointed to one that three quarters of his last forty customers had chosen. That’s the one I want, I told him. Why argue with the market you are trying to sell to?

2. Do your own research. The real estate agent might show you only the comparable sales that make the property look more valuable. Do your own research. Some counties have made it easy now, with sales prices online. You can also search any number of sites with MLS listings, just to get an idea about the asking prices of other nearby properties.

3. Partner carefully. When you do a deal with partners, be the money or the management, but not both. Group decisions tend not to work well in real estate, and will cause you much stress. Once you decide on and agree to a plan, step back if you are investing the capital, and let your partner do his thing. Of course, step up and take control if you are managing the project.

4. Negotiate openly. Just ask a seller outright, “What do you want to get out of this?” It is rare that someone is offended by this simple question, and it saves you from wasting valuable time talking about things that don’t interest him or her. Once you get a clear answer, you can decide if you can give them what they want, and still get what you need.

5. Invest safely. Investing isn’t gambling. There is always risk, but the difference is that the odds are in your favor. If not, you are gambling. This why you shouldn’t invest based on continued price increases. There is no guarantee that prices will continue up at any particular rate. Do deals that work even if prices go nowhere, and if values go up, you’re that much better off.

6. Run the numbers. It is about the numbers, and if it is income property, it’s about one number in particular: cash flow. Whatever the local formulas are, whether gross rent multipliers or capitalization rates or whatever, just be sure that after every last expense you’ll have cash flow from the very first month.

Rules, formulas and real estate tips are really just guidelines. Even the rule above about cash flow can be broken if you know that rents can be raised soon, for example. You have to use common sense and learn from experience, and you can’t replace good analysis with rules, formulas and real estate tips.