Sharon YC Lee Real Estate

sharon-lee-real-estate.com

Selling Your Home Fast And For More

Common questions are: How can I sell my home for more? How can I sell my home fast?

Here I provide numerous ideas to help you sell your home. However, every home and every sale is different. Get advice specific to your home. Let’s meet and talk – 650-857-1000.

Low Cost, High Impact Upgrades That Add To Your Net Sales Price

You should try to create emotional conditions for buyers to want your home. You need to eliminate fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). The following seven items are relatively inexpensive and excellent steps towards selling your home quicker and for more money.

  1. Fresh paint.
  2. Repair any leaks.
  3. Replace light fixtures.
  4. Manicuring lawn, new mulch, clean yard.
  5. Replace hardware and fixtures.
  6. Replace high impact items on inspection report.
    • Offer a repair credit at closing and include multiple estimates.
  7. Fixing flooring issues if it looks bad (significant wear and tear).

By listening to many home buyers, I’ve found that many people who will pay for a beautifully, completely, updated home come from urban environments where they can easily get work done by making a few phone calls. They are not “do it yourself” people. When selling your home you need to think about who all of your potential buyers are likely to be and how you will address potential concerns.

What You Should Not Fix When Selling Your Home

  1. Don’t remodel your kitchen and bathrooms (major remodels).
  2. Don’t replace the flooring.
  3. Do take down old window coverings. Don’t replace them.
  4. Don’t do partial fixes (mismatched knobs, handles, etc.)
  5. Don’t spend a lot to update a fireplace. Clean it and make sure it works correctly.
  6. Don’t replace the driveway or sidewalk.
  7. Don’t replace the roof.
  8. Don’t do any major landscaping
  9. Don’t replace the front door. (Claimed as by some as something to do, but not supported by costvsvalue.com)
  10. Don’t over improve relative to your neighborhood

The table below is created from data provided by a remodeling trade group. Their data shows that most remodeling projects return less than 100% of their cost. It isn’t perfect information, but is provided by a construction trade group (Journal of Light Construction: a prominent monthly magazine and media brand for residential and light commercial builders, offering practical, hands-on advice, business insights, tool reviews, and technical guides on topics like high-performance homes, remodeling, and new product performance for contractors and remodelers.)

Renovations You Will Regret

  • Bedroom deletion – wipe out $30k+
  • Painting exterior brick or stone (maintenance, spalling)
  • Installing wall mounted faucets (cost of maintenance)
  • MDF baseboards in the bathroom
  • Microwave directly over the stove (congestion, builder grade impression)
  • Bold pattern tiles (busy black and white geometric – dated)
  • Back-to-back island layout: sink in an island with the stove positioned immediately behind the sink in the adjacent counter.
  • Building an ADU to increase the sales value of your home.

Potential Problems For Home Buyers

  • Street parking (no parking in the middle of the day).
  • Condition of roof:
    • multiple layers
    • shiny spots
  • Deteriorating wood.
  • Cracks in stucco or wood – can fit a quarter in.
  • Lawn, sprinklers.
  • Fences.
  • Trees.
  • What feeling do you get when you walk into the house
    • Maintenance: owners don’t care vs. pride
  • Floor: condition and or slope.
  • Water damage under sinks.
  • Neighbors yards poorly maintained can imply shared maintenance problems.
  • Electrical panel.
  • Solar panel, with old roof, remove to repair roof.
  • Water heater – 10 to 12 years.
  • Furnace.
  • Condenser for AC.
  • Chimney.
  • Swimming pool: coping, bottom of the pool, equipment
  • Windows: fogging for dual pane windows.
  • Remodeled: quick repairs or updates done with cheap materials, poor workmanship, or by unqualified people.

Selling Your House As Is

What selling your house “As-Is” means: “As Disclosed”. You are legally required to tell the buyer about known problems or problems you should know about. Our experience has been that most disclosed problems are generally not as big of a problem as undisclosed problems.

  • Illusion of saving time and money.
  • May trigger lower offer.
  • Buyers may not visit the house.
  • House may sit on market longer – cost.
  • Home inspection repairs after accepted contract.

When selling As-Is Makes Sense:

  • Inherited property.
  • Facing disclosure or financial stress.
    • Looking for cash buyer, and investor
  • Structural or environmental issue you can not afford to fix.
    • Disclose the issue and state that the buyer must make the repairs.
  • Sellers should understand that “selling-as-is” is not for everyone.

Selling To A Company Buying Instant Cash

These companies do not buy homes at the full value of your home. In most cases they give 75 to 80 cents on the dollar. Their final offered price will typically depend upon an inspection. They make money by buying at a discount, renovating, and selling it.

  • iBuyer
  • OpenDoor
  • HomeVestors

Major Mistakes When Selling

  • Too high of price
    • Do your homework
    • Don’t ignore seasonality for prices
    • Price high, then reduce is a mistake because most activity occurs during first 2 or 3 weeks.
    • Buyers assume the home has problems, if it has been on the market for a long time.
    • Don’t be offended or unwilling to negotiate.
  • Consider all good offers. Don’t require multiple offers to choose from. Be knowledgeable and comfortable with your price.
    • Think about what aspects are important to you.
  • Selling without staging. The house must feel right.
    • Not every home needs professional staging
    • Must declutter, depersonalize
    • Must deep clean
    • Must remove excess furniture: does it feel cramped, does the flow work well.
  • Not doing necessary repairs and maintenance.
  • Not choosing the right agent
    • How many sales, how many reviews.
    • Compare two or three agents
      • Ask agent to justify their estimated price and explain differences with other estimates.
        • Ex: Zillow includes all sales including off-market sales and sales to family members.
        • Ex: Zillow doesn’t know the condition of the house.
  • Ignoring that the buyer sets the market value. You optimize the value buyers see.
    • Buyer doesn’t care what you need.
    • Buyer doesn’t care what you think the house is worth.

Summary: Selling Your Home Fast. Selling Your Home For More.

The information provided here should give you a great start at understanding how to achieve a great home sale but talk with me to put much more knowledge and the experience gained from hundreds of home sales to help you. Sharon YC Lee, Listing Director, Juliana Lee Team, 650-857-1000

We provide an incredible amount of data to help you understand Silicon Valley home prices. We believe that is a great start but it doesn’t replace the experience we have from working daily with people buying and selling homes.

Silicon Valley Home Prices leads to home prices for counties, cities, zip codes, and neighborhoods.