Home Selling Academy
Lesson 2 - Getting Your Home Ready
The hardest part when selling your home is getting your home ready for sale. You need to do this regardless if you are using an agent or not. My advice is to jump right in with 2 solid weeks of hard work and get it out of the way.
Why Making Your Home Look Great is Important
Getting Your Home Ready TranscriptDownload and read the transcript.
- Plan on visiting some open houses to see how the competition stacks up. Notice things like the cleanliness, upgrades, and decorating choices. After you leave each house, write down what you liked and did not like about that house. This will help you in prioritizing your to-dos later.
Working With A Limited Budget
- Staging on a Limited Budget Transcript
Download and read the transcript.
How To Get Organized
Once you get organized, you will know what you need to do and when to do it. This is going to be a lot of hard work that you should do regardless if you have an agent or not. Watch this video below and then use the spreadsheet to organize your tasks.
- Getting Organized Prioritization Worksheet
Use this worksheet to list everything that you need to do to your home to make it look awesome. Once you have everything written down, use the prioritization in the video to help you know what you should start on.
- Disclosure Checklist
If you already have your disclosure document from your Real Estate Attorney, use that. If you don’t, use this checklist to make sure you cover everything that needs to be fixed or improved.
- Grab your disclosure or checklist and start writing down everything that needs to be fixed or changed to make your house look better. Put it on the Excel spreadsheet provided above. Once you have everything on there, start prioritizing according to the video.
Get Early Feedback From your Friends
One of the problems you will face is that all of your Facebook friends will not see every post you make. Why? Facebook shows you posts from friends with whom you interact. Every time you Like a friend’s post, comment on it, or share it, Facebook is more likely to show you their next post. This homework assignment is the first step to make sure that you get the biggest bang for your post. It is the start of marketing your house for sale.
If you are not on Facebook, skip this step.
- Take 5 minutes to take before pictures of the outside of your house. Take pictures of the front, back and side yards. Take them looking at your home and looking away from your home.
- Take an hour to take before pictures of the insides of your house. These pictures don’t need to be professional but your house does need to be cleaned. Take pictures of every room.
- Post Your Pictures on Facebook. If you are on Facebook today, you want to start marketing your house on Facebook. The best way to do this is to get your Facebook friends involved in selling your house early on.
Suggested Script for Facebook Post
As some of you may know, we are putting our house up for sale. I’m getting ready to start cleaning and repairing and wanted to get your thoughts on what needs to be changed. Can you please take a look at these pictures and tell me what one thing you would change to make my house look more appealing to buyers? Thank you so much!
- Tip! Post your outside pictures on day 1. Post your inside pictures starting day 3. Post one room a day until you have posted all rooms.
- Tip! Make sure to like everyone’s comment and reply to them with something positive, like “great idea” or “I never thought of that – Thanks!
Tips for Getting Your Home In Show Ready Shape
Getting your home in show ready shape can be a lot of fun. You get to freshen up your rooms and your house. Those old to-do lists finally get done. It is hard work, but in the end you feel great about what you just did.
Check out this article with a ton of tips on getting your house show ready.
What A Staged Home Looks Like
See more examples at Stagedhomes.com
