Selling a Home for Non Dummies

If you are considering putting your Oklahoma City home up for sale on your own you should make sure that you know the risks involved. Without having a representative to assist you in the many aspects of selling your home you can end up feeling quite confused.

What you will miss

If you make the decision to put your Oklahoma City home up for sale on your own, you will be losing a lot of potential benefits that a real estate agent could provide. You will not have access to a specialist that will look for buyers and also help you advertise the features of your home. Also, you will not have a person who has experience in the market and knows the value of homes and properties.

You may end up receiving less money than originally expected since you’ll have missed out on the proper guidance needed. It is easy to overlook something that may not have seemed important at the time, but will definitely result in a decrease of value or a negative image of your home. You will also have to host all of the open houses and viewings on your own, meaning more time and energy spent to get the house sold.

How to make the most of your home sale

In order to get the most out of the sale, you will need an experienced Oklahoma City real estate agent who can assist and guide you through the process.? This process of selling your home may seem simple at a glance but it is actually a tedious and time-consuming transaction that requires legal knowledge and experience. A real estate agent will maximize your potential profit and will generally increase the speed of the sale.

By putting your Oklahoma City home up for sale on your own you are taking a huge risk. With a lot of money being put on the line, the simplest and best thing to do is to hire a professional real estate agent.

There are a few reasons why an Oklahoma City home won’t sell as fast as anticipated, and if you know about them before putting your house up for sale, you’ll be much better off. You’ll be able to put things in place properly to get a faster sale by avoiding the following.

1. House is dirty or cluttered

You may have a very hectic lifestyle and may not be able to keep up with the housework as much as you’d like. It is critical to have your house spic and span as well as tidy when it is being sold. If you are planning on putting your house up on the Oklahoma City market in the near future, you should hire a housecleaning service and a company that can help you organize your clutter. This is a small price to pay to make your house better prepared for a sale.

While you may be thinking that buyers should be able to see through the clutter and dirt and view the house on its own merits, it really doesn’t work that way. First impressions are lasting and even if they love your Oklahoma City home, they may withdraw simply because of the home’s messy appearance.

2. Maintenance not kept up

There are little things that will get the attention of buyers when they are walking through your home that will irritate them enough to back off from putting in an offer. Simple things like a crack in the wall, broken flooring, doors that open properly and cupboards that are hard to maneuver should be fixed before any viewings. There are handymen in Oklahoma City that are available to help you with these little things at very affordable prices. You can find their names in classified ads in your local newspaper or on the Internet. If you have a list of things that need to get done and hire a handyman for a full day, it really won’t cost much at all.

3. Bad atmosphere

Every Oklahoma City home emits its own atmosphere and there can either be a positive or negative flow in the house. Things that will contribute to negativity include bad odors, an empty appearance with little furniture and nothing on the walls, low lighting and curtains drawn, loud pounding music etc. Anything you can do to make your home appear happy and peaceful instead of drawn and droopy will help sell your home in the fastest way possible.

If you have received a call from your agent and need to get ready for a viewing, do a quick tidy up and make the home as positive as you can by setting the mood yourself. The better the mood in your Oklahoma City home, the more likely the house will sell fast.

Some real estate agents believe that selling an Oklahoma City house with a pool acts as a deterrent to at least 50% of the home buyers. While some agents may not agree with this percentage, almost all will agree that selling a home with a pool is harder to sell than one without.

Here are the main reasons why many people are not interested in owning an Oklahoma City house with a pool.

1. Children’s safety

Drowning is a major concern for parents of toddlers and many choose to avoid having an Oklahoma City house with a pool for just this reason. Even having a fence and a safety system in place cannot guarantee 100% that a mistake won’t happen.

2. Maintenance

It takes a lot of work to maintain a pool. If you hire a company or an individual to keep your pool clean, you’ll still have to vacuum it between cleanings. If the pool company only comes once a week, you’ll have to vacuum it at least once between visits. If you decide to clean the pool yourself, it involves a time commitment that cannot be broken.

The cost of maintaining a pool is very expensive. Every 10 years the pool will need to be resurfaced and this will cost $5000 and up, depending on how large the pool is. Hiring a company to clean your pool will average about $500 monthly and this may or may not include the pool supplies. Chemicals can run over $1000 for one summer, and the costs will run higher if any repairs need to be made.

3. Cost of damage

If the pool is not maintained it will become stained due to an overgrowth of algae. If it is totally neglect it will begin cracking due to lack of calcium. It would cost more than $10,000 to get the pool repaired at this point.

If you think that you may want to put your house up for sale within the next five years or so, you may want to rethink any plans you have of installing a new pool. It may slow down the sale of your home in the future because many buyers stay away from an Oklahoma City house with a pool.

If you have been thinking about selling your home but don’t really know what to expect, here is a basic Oklahoma City home selling guide to look at. It outlines the basics of selling your home in Oklahoma City and what you need to do to get prepared for it.

1. Why are you selling?

Examine the reasons why you want to sell your Oklahoma City home. You should only put your home up for sale if you are firmly motivated to sell it. If you have any vague doubts lingering about buying a new home and leaving your existing one, get those worked out first.

2. Look at other home options

If you are selling your Oklahoma City home to move to a new neighborhood, make sure that you have done your homework first. You may find that the price of moving simply isn’t worth your time or effort. You may also find that you can’t find another house that you’d like to live in that’s better than the one you are in now. It’s always best to explore all your options before making a final decision one way or another.

3. Select a real estate agent

Talk to a Oklahoma City agent that you feel will be able to market your home efficiently and get it sold fast. Find out more about the agent you plan on working with to establish a trust factor. Find out what types of marketing the agent can do to sell your home.

4. Prepare your home

If you have decided to list your Oklahoma City home you’ll have to prepared for the sale. Look for any repairs that need to be done and any outpoints that a potential buyer would see when entering your home. In most cases small fix ups may be necessary to sell your house faster and get a higher price.

5. Get ready for financing

Get in touch with your current lender to learn the exact amount that still needs to be paid off on your home and how much equity it has built up. At that point you can approach different lenders and look for the best mortgage deal.

While there is a lot more to selling a house, this basic Oklahoma City home guide should help you put things in perspective. Your real estate agent will help guide you through every step of the process and you’ll find that it is probably easier than what you first imagined.

You should only do this if 1) You really want to help out the Buyers’ of your home because you are going to be giving them a great deal as I will explain later or 2) You have way too much money assuming the phrase too much money describes a real situation.  Now you should not feel bad if you thought this was a good idea.  I hear it all the time and the idea is perpetuated by real estate professionals.  The multiple listing service is full of listings that say $x,xxx.00 carpet allowance. The logic seems sound.  This way they will get to pick the kind of carpet that they want.  Or, they are probably going to replace the carpet anyway.  Sounds good but only if you don’t understand the way a Buyer chooses their home purchase.  They choose it emotionally.  They choose it often by the way it feels and they usually choose quickly.  I usually can tell if a Buyer is going to purchase a home or not within 30 seconds of being in the house. 

What you will be doing by offering a carpet allowance is giving up something for nothing.  A terrible negotiation.  You are giving up the cost of the carpet but it will not be reflected in your selling price.  Why?  Because the Buyers are going to make an offer based on how your house makes them feel and crappy carpet is not going to elicit those amorous feelings about home ownership that you need if you are to obtain a top dollar price for your home.  Even worse you may get no offer at all. 

The problem of bad carpet is exacerbated if you are selling a house with no furniture.  I have observed over the years that when a Buyer enters a house with no furniture their eyes immediately go to the floor because there is nothing else in the room to draw their attention.  This not only applies to carpet but any type of flooring.  I am only using the word carpet because that is what ties into the title of this post.

So, why is this idea so prevalent?

1. Because often the Seller does not want to spend the money until they know they can sell the house.  Unfortunately this is self sabotage and results in the realization of their fear, namely, the house not selling.

2. The Real Estate Professional is standing right in front of you often asking you to hire them to sell your house.  So, instead of telling you that you are wrong and risk losing the listing or getting a house with nothing to offer but crappy carpet they will take the carpet allowance.  The same professional might be less likely to follow this route if they were footing the cost of offering the carpet allowance.  It is worth noting that people who professionally sell houses, e.g., builders, investors, Realtors will always continue working until they have a finished product.  They don’t stop short of installing the flooring and say they will want to pick their colors.  They want the house to wow the buyer and you should too.

3. Houses do sell all the time with a carpet allowance so it seems to confirm that it was the right choice.  However what is not realized is that the carpet allowance actually cost them money without benefit.

OK, OK I get it no carpet allowance.  So what is a Seller to do.  Install a carpet that is neutral and will have a wide appeal.  Install it before you offer your house on the market so that a Buyer will fall in love with your house and pay you a premium price.

How do you pick a carpet with a wide appeal? One of the easiest ways is to ask a local flooring company what their most popular choice is or what do they often sell to builders.  You will often find that it is a medium priced carpet that is less costly than what you might expect. I have found that most Sellers overestimate the cost of carpet because they remember installing carpet in their house at a higher cost.  Often, this because the carpet salesman upgraded them to a carpet that is much costlier than what would be expected in even a new home.

Well hopefully that myth is put down for good and you are now armed with more knowledge you can use to go out and sell that home for a record price.