Here are the top five ways to maximize your home’s sale price when preparing it for the market:

1. After you sign the listing agreement, start filling out your disclosures to give to the buyer. Sometimes, people are so wrapped up in getting their property ready for the market that they forget about the disclosures. Doing this could potentially delay the escrow process and cause problems after the close of escrow. 

2. Get your pre-inspections taken care of. If you order your home’s inspections before talking to a serious buyer and then let them know about the home’s condition up front, you can negotiate over which repairs to make before coming to terms on a price. This will save you a lot of money. 

3. Stage the home. I’ve found that you can increase your sale price by 5% to 25% if you walk through your home with a real estate agent and do whatever needs to be done (decluttering, recarpeting, repainting, etc.) to stage it before putting it on the market. 

“When pricing your home, focus on the leading indicators instead of the lagging indicators.”

4. Start the pre-marketing process early on. In the old days, sellers would list their property on a Tuesday, take photos of it on Wednesday, get it ready for the market on Friday, and have an open house on Saturday or Sunday. Good agents know that the new way of doing things involves pre-marketing your property weeks in advance of listing it in order to expose it to the most buyers possible. 

5. Make sure you’re still the clear choice in price. When pricing your home, focus on the leading indicators instead of the lagging indicators. The market has shifted, and we previously relied on lagging indicators like sold comps and the list-to-sale price ratio to price a property. Now, leading indicators like the supply of inventory, the average days on market, and the number of pending properties will tell you what’s happening now and in the next 30 to 60 days. Right now, more properties are extending their average days on market than ever before.

If you’re thinking of making a move in 2019, give me a call so I can help you get started and position your home to sell for top dollar. If you have any other questions about our real estate market, feel free to reach out to me as well. I look forward to speaking with you.