You’re Moving Up and Moving On—It’s Time to Sell Your First Home.

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Selling your first home is an important milestone that can also be bittersweet. You'll be leaving behind a place in which you created many first memories while also looking forward to creating new memories in a new house. While every person will have a different emotional reaction to selling their first home, here are some practical tips that can help make the selling process less stressful.

Selling Through a Realtor vs Selling Yourself

There are pros and cons to hiring a realtor to sell your house versus selling your home yourself. With the increasing popularity of public listing websites, it's now easier to promote a house for sale beyond a "for sale" sign on the front lawn. Opting to sell your home yourself can also save you the typical commission fee if you choose to sell with a realtor. However, there are also a number of benefits to selling through a realtor. A good realtor will be highly knowledgeable about your local real estate market and can offer you advice on how to price your house so that it's competitive with other comparable houses on the market. Additionally, many realtors are extensively connected with other local realtors, and through this network, a selling agent can work with other buyers' agents to bring in financially qualified candidates to purchase your home. This can save you the potential hassle of dealing with interested parties who may not actually have the resources to purchase your home. Finally, a realtor can also offer tips on repairs and fixes that could help increase your listing price or help sell your house faster.

Getting Your House Prepared for a Sale

Whether you sell your home yourself or hire a realtor to sell it for you, it's important that your house is in proper condition to be sold. While some buyers don't mind facing a renovation project, there are some features-generally functional as opposed to cosmetic, such as electrical, plumbing, heating/cooling-that most buyers will expect to not have to fix themselves. So if there are any issues with these functional systems, it may be a good idea to repair these in advance of a sale. The cosmetics of your house can be trickier since everyone has different tastes. However, there are some basic cosmetic things that can be done to improve the chances of selling your home:

  • Maintaining the overall cleanliness of the house

  • Fixing any disrepair, such as chipping paint, broken windows/screens, loose doorknobs, stained carpets, scratched floors, broken tiles, etc.

  • Ensuring curb appeal by keeping the overall outside of the house maintained and tidy, including mowing the lawn and clearing walkways and driveways of leaves in the fall and snow in the winter

Beyond the overall cleanliness and maintenance of your house, most buyers will want to be able to imagine themselves living in your house. So, while it may be bittersweet, it's a good rule of thumb to keep personal effects such as family photos and your children's toys to a minimum (or none at all) when your house is being shown to potential buyers. A realtor may even recommend staging your house to make it more appealing to a wide variety of buyers. Depending on the cost and extent of staging, and how quickly you need to sell your house, staging may be a good option to invest in prior to potential buyers seeing your house.

Regardless of whether you sell your home yourself or enlist a realtor to do it for you, the end goal is getting you settled into your new home. By following some or all of the tips mentioned above, you'll be on your way to starting your new life in your new home in no time! It is never too early to start your saving for your dream home. We invite you to navigate our website today to open a new savings account or CD.

 

The information mentioned in this article is for informational purposes only, is intended to provide general guidance and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Each person's situation is unique and may materially differ from the information provided herein. You should seek the advice of a financial professional, tax consultant and/or legal counsel to address your specific needs before any financial or other commitments regarding the issues related to your situation are made. Popular Bank does not make any representations or warranties as to the content contained herein and disclaims any and all liability resulting from any use of or reliance on such content.