The Ultimate 6-Week Guide to Getting Your House Ready to Sell
You’ve decided to sell your home, but how do you get your house ready to sell?
With numerous tasks to tackle, from depersonalizing to boosting your home’s curb appeal, the home sale process can seem daunting, especially if you’re on a tight timeline.
With help from a top real estate agent, we’ll walk you through all the pre-listing preparations. Whether you’re racing against the clock due to an unexpected job relocation, taking advantage of a booming market, or just eager to make your next move, this guide will provide a week-by-week roadmap to get your house market-ready in just six weeks.
Week 1: Conduct preliminary market research
Get to know your local housing market. By familiarizing yourself with competing properties and current listing prices, you’ll have more realistic expectations of what you can sell your home for.
First, use a free home appraisal tool like HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator to estimate your home’s current market value. These tools use sophisticated algorithms to give you an idea of how much buyers would pay for your home in the current market.
But don’t mistake the resulting figure for your future listing price. You’ll need to work with a local real estate agent who can conduct a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) to determine your home’s true value.
Next, browse local property listings online and note how your home compares to similar properties. What condition are these homes in? Are these properties staged? What are the listing prices for homes that are similar in size and design?
The estimator will use the details of your property and compare them with local market trends to provide you with a ballpark estimate of your home’s value.
