How to Prep My Home For Sale

Hey there. If you've been thinking about selling your home in the near future, one of the things that's probably on your mind is what kind of home prep should you do? Should you do a fresh coat of paint? Should you replace some flooring? Things like that. So, in this video, I'm going to break down the way I look at it and the way I approach it. And I hope it helps you in your home selling journey. So, let's dive in. Number one, typically one of the first things I want to look for are roadblocks. Now, by roadblocks, what I mean is this, do you have anything that would stop the buyers in their tracks and make them ponder, "Do I need to spend a whole bunch of money? Is there something really wrong?" So, for an example, let's say you had a leak in your roof a while back and you fixed the roof, but you never went back and fixed that little black, brown spot in the ceiling.

Well, that's something we got to address because if they come through, you're thinking, "Hey, they should give me top dollar. I have a new roof." The buyer's coming through and they're like, "Huh, is there a leak? Do I need to replace the roof? Do I have to spend a whole bunch of money on day one?" That's how the buyer's going to look at it, so let's remove that roadblock. Number two, I can go through to any house and say, "Sure. Yeah, let's do a fresh coat of paint. Let's do this flooring. Let's do this. Let's update these handles, hinges," but here's the thing, is it worth it? Will this make your house sell faster? Probably. What about money? Let's say to do a nice little freshening up in your house costs $50,000, just for our argument's sake. If it's only going to make you $30,000 back, that doesn't excite me. But if you spend 50, I get you 50 back and then another 20 or 30 on top, now I'm excited. Right?

So, what we need to do is think about positioning. I mean, everybody can look at solds and say, "Oh, hey look, all these homes in my neighborhood and our area have sold for X dollars and this fast," but we also need to say, "What's our competition doing? What are the other homes on the market right now? How many homes are on the market? How fast are they moving? And what condition are they in? So, if you tell me, "Hey, look, these four homes have all sold in lightning, quick speeds and got this great amount of money," and you pull them up and they look immaculate. I mean, they were flipped, brand new kitchens, new baths, shiny floors, everything just looks awesome. And then you're like, "Hey, my home's a little dated." If that's the case, we shouldn't expect to get the same price that those brand new flipped rehab looking homes are getting. Right?

So, we need to position ourselves either by doing those updates, so we can compete at that same price point, or we just say, "You know what? We're not going to be as good and that's okay. So, instead of coming at this price, let's just come down a little bit and let's have a value proposition." So, it's all about positioning. It's not just about price. So, big takeaway is again, remove roadblocks. Two, what's our competition doing? Three, what has sold? And what's the condition of those places? And how do we want to position ourselves in order to compete? Hope that helps you. That's how I like to look at it. I'm Brendan Spear with Caprika Realty, and I wish you the best in your home selling journey.

Questions? Ready to sell your home?