The Guide to Selling a House

When you’re selling a house, the absolute best thing you can do is have it looking its best. How? Here’s what you need to consider:
• De-Cluttering: Get rid of what you don’t need. You need to remove all the bulky items that make your rooms seem small and distract a buyer’s attention. We also recommend cleaning out your closets and kitchen cupboards and truly treat your home like a showroom that a potential buyer is walking into.
• Fix the Little Things: We recommend a pre-listing home inspection but there are plenty of things you can do without one. Things like caulking around the sink, finishing the stain on your deck or fixing that leaky faucet. You’d (probably) be surprised at how many $5 fixes will give you thousands of dollars in return on an offer.
• Treat your house like an investment: If your financial planner said “Give me $500 today and I will turn it into $1000 tomorrow” would you do it? Of course you would. Don’t shy away from putting in money if you know it will produce a return. Some of the simplest things, like changing light fixtures, putting up a nice mirror or adding a few plants, provide such a great return on investment.
• Clean it: The cleanliness of your house is so important but always gets overlooked. When we take buyers out, we check closets and we check the kitchen cupboards and fridge. Why? Because without a doubt how someone keeps their house on a daily basis is a direct reflection of how they maintain it year round.
• Curb Appeal: This is the true “first impression”. Trim your hedges and make sure your garden-bed doesn’t look like it is on its, uh, death-bed. If you create a negative impression outside, buyers will look a lot more cautiously when they get inside.

Buyers will always ask questions like: what does it cost to heat this place? How much hydro? How old is the furnace? Is the water tank rented or owned? And the list goes on. Having those answers ready makes you look great and shows once again you care and increases the value your home conveys.

You’ll also want to have all of your documents on-hand and know the age of your mechanical items, including what is still under warranty. We like to go as far as providing buyers with a list of questions and answers that most insurance companies will ask for…it’s the little things after all.

If you have completed steps 1 and 2 above, then you’ve made sure that your home will be at its peak level for pricing. But there’s more! Here are the most important pricing considerations when selling a house:

• What has sold recently in your community?
• What’s actively on the market in the community?
• What are the current market conditions?
• What are the current mortgage rates?
• How does your home compare to what has sold?
• What are the key features that are unique to your home?

This plays a VERY pivotal role when you’re selling a house, because it’s within the first two weeks that you’re the most likely to get your asking price. Your real estate agent will need to be able to get your house out to as many people as possible and the marketing your home receives should include:

• Professional Photography: Whatever you do, make sure that you invest in a great photographer. Remember that person that said a picture is worth a thousand words? They were right.
• YouTube Video: Buyers like knowing as much about a house as they can before walking in, and sometimes pictures won’t cut it for them. Video is a great way to expose your house and get buyers off the fence.
• For Sale Sign: People in the community talk, and when they see a house is for sale, they will tell their network. Also, buyers who want to be in a specific neighbourhood do tend to drive by often and see if anything just went up for sale.
• Feature Stands: Feature stands allow you to showcase your homes best features. You know more than the buyer agent and feature stands attract a buyer’s attention to exactly where you want it. If you have new hand scraped hardwood floors that cost a fortune, you want to highlight that to a buyer and not let their agent simply say “they have hardwood”.
• Open Houses: Often portrayed as a way for listing agents to get more business, open houses have made a resurgence, and they’re a great way to attract buyers. Many buyers are skeptical about signing with an agent, and open houses allow them the freedom to see properties without the pressures of signing a contract.
• Depending on the weather and time of year you can expect to get up to 50-60 people showing up over the course of a weekend.
• Online Marketing: Over 90% of buyers are online. Your home should be exposed on social media and on multiple websites. Always remember, the more people that are seeing your home, the more opportunity you have to find the buyer. We recommend you share it on your social media accounts as well.
• Demographics: You’re looking for ONE buyer, and knowing who that buyer will likely be is the BIGGEST key to success in marketing. If your area is attracting young couples with children, your marketing message should reflect that. Don’t spread yourself too thin with marketing dollars; the best bang for your buck is trying to draw out the most likely buyer who will buy with an emotional factor at play.

When selling a house, you need to try and picture it not being your house anymore, and instead, treat it like a showroom. How? Here are some major turn offs you should avoid for buyers:

• Being Present: Please, get out of the house and let people view it in private! If you’re there, they’ll be talking about you and not focusing on whether or not they want to buy the house.
• Leave Lights On: If you have a viewing at 7pm, leave the lights on before you head out. If a buyer’s first impression of every room in your house is their agent scrambling to find the light switch, then your home can lose some appeal.
• Keep it Clean: Keeping up with the cleanliness is crucial. Make sure that the beds are made, there is no laundry left on the floors or any dishes in the sink when you know you have viewings.
• Find a Home for your pets: They aren’t every man’s best friend. Some buyers will not want to go into houses with pets or be very scared of them. Also, when people see pets, they do look at the house more carefully for damages. If it is an option, try and find a home your pet can stay in while the house is listed or try your best to have them crated/with you during viewings.

This is the best part of all! Your hard work has paid off, BUT there are still a few more hurdles to climb. Here’s what to consider with offers:

• Conditions: Financing and home inspection conditions are on most offers to purchase a home. You’ll likely also see a few other conditions in the deal, and you should make sure your agent knows the ins and outs of everything that is written into the contract.
• The other important factors which you will be considering are things like the price, the deposit and the closing date. All of these items play a role into how you will handle an offer to purchase your home.

Waiting for closing can sometimes seem like an eternity, but there are a few things you will need to take care of (ideally, sooner than later).

Inform the utility companies, insurance companies, and important people that you’re moving. You’ll want to cancel or transfer any accounts associated with your home, and make sure that important people like your friends, family, and professional network is aware of your address change.

You should also be prepared to make a trip or two to your lawyer’s office prior to closing to sign documents and of course pick up your cheque!

We recommend to save any chances of closing day anxiety that make sure you are packed up and ready to go the day before closing so you don’t get overwhelmed and you are 100% ready for closing.