Looking for 7 helpful tips to sell your home quickly? Read on. James and I have been talking about retirement for quite sometime now. I think we started mentally planning when we were about 35 years old. This plan has evolved a lot over the years.
Always Think About Your Future
We will both be 50 years old this year and it is getting closer as our nest is getting emptier. We came up with these 7 helpful tips below to help you sell your home quickly!
-The first plan was to downsize and get a small home so we could travel more.
-Next, we were going to upgrade our travel trailer to a class A trailer and travel the USA. James and I thought we would do six months visiting the family in New England and six months on the road exploring.
Be A Smart Planner
We quickly saw how much gas is consumed when pulling a trailer. Mind you, we love camping and own a residential camper now. So we are planning to spend 6 months a year in it, as of now, because things are always changing.
It’s funny because we have this amazing trailer that stays put and last year I said to James, “I want to buy a tent.” I love our trailer but I miss traveling like we used to.
When we had our travel trailer we would see what the weather was going to be like for the weekend and pack up and go. If it was going to rain here, let’s see where it wasn’t going to rain and off we would adventure.
The kids enjoyed the spontaneity and as they began to get in there tween years they would often bring along a friend. We also planned our week or two long vacations around camping.
-Again as time progresses, we still think we want to still spend six months here. We need to see our children and their families. We are planning to spend six months on a Caribbean island, choosing a different island each year.
Flexibility Is The Key
-So I watched a Caribbean Life television show on cable and saw a couple moving down to Roatan, Honduras. We visited Roatan a few years ago and really liked it. This couple was told they could rent out a one bedroom apartment for $500/month. My mouth dropped open.
As the realtor was showing these apartments, I was looking saying we could live there. I’ve also been hearing how easily it is to live inexpensively in Thailand. So we have more choices!!! There are some big trips I want to do and we will need to live inexpensively one year to live more expensively the next.
When we started thinking about selling our home, I grabbed the laptop. I decided to research how to sell our home fast. If we are going to move, let’s not live in limbo for a long time.
Be Ready To Make Some Changes
We are fortunate because we have a summer home we can move into. As I started reading articles there was a theme of staging your house. But before you can completely stage you have to do some things first.
1. De-clutter was first on every list I read. As we carry things in daily we tend not to carry things out so things begin to look and feel cluttered. We needed to go through each room and decide if we would take it with us, sell, donate, put in storage, or throw items away.
Make sure to look in closets and shelving in each room. When people look through your house they will look in drawers and cabinets as well as closets. We definitely don’t want things to fall out or look unorganized. Your potential buyer may feel like if there is not enough room for you in this house, then there may not be enough room for them and their family either.
2. Next is to depersonalize your space. The buyer needs to be able to say, “I can see myself living here.” Not your family staring them in the face. Time to take down the wall of family photos. Sure, you still live there, so maybe you can keep a few but most do need to go for now. It’s not forever, I promise!
3. Make minor repairs.
-Paint to neutral colors, fix a leaky faucet, redo caulking if needed around fixtures.
-Make the front door inviting, replace burnt out light bulbs, and fix holes in walls are just some of the things to be mindful of.
Always Pay Attention To Detail
4. Make your house sparkle, inside and out. You will want to consider a cleaning service to come in and give it a deep clean. When I had to clean everything, I kept getting distracted. Oh, let me put this away.
Next I’m cleaning the bedroom closet instead of the baseboards in the living room where I started. A cleaning service is much quicker and efficient than we are. They can also move quickly through that already de-cluttered house.
5. Curb Appeal – Go outside and look at your house. Does it sparkle?
-Borrow or rent a power washer to wash your home. Make sure to clean the windows.
-Weed any flower beds and lightly mulch. Add a few fresh flowers.
-Yellow seems to put prospects in a buying mood.
6. You never know when you will get that exciting call that the house is going to be shown. You will want to keep up with things.
-Clean all surfaces daily.
-Keep up with laundry and dishes.
-Keep floors clean and vacuumed daily.
-Wash mirrors daily.
7. Leave your house smelling inviting.
-Use air neutralizer, or maybe bake some cookies. This depends on the time that you have.
I hope these 7 tips helps you to sell your home quickly!!!
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