| Repairs That Help Sell Your Home

Good Advice

"As you often suggest, we interviewed several real estate agents about listing our home. We listed with one because she estimated the highest sales price. Now we realize it was a scam to get our listing. After just two weeks, she started working on us to reduce our asking price. We did, but it didn't help. When it expired we listed at a more realistic asking price with a better agent. The house sold after about four weeks. Thank you for reminding us about the old "highball" listing scam whereby an agent estimates an unrealistically high sales price to persuade the owner to spurn other agents who estimate more realistic (and lower) sales prices for the home."

~ as told to Broker/Speaker
_.Robert Bruss

Repairs That Help Sell Your Home

Most Sellers know of some repairs that need to be made to their home, and a lot of Sellers have many items on that list, but not all repairs are equal or, rather, not all home improvements rank high in the Buyer’s mind.

Finding out which repairs will help you sell your home helps you create a good, solid fix-it list to work on. According to a study produced by HomeGain which aimed to take the guess-work out of where to spend your repair dollars, the top four areas to focus on are: 1) clean and de-clutter; 2) lighten and brighten; 3) stage the home for sale; and 4) landscape the font/back yards.

The Return on Investment (ROI) depends on the repair and, in some cases, which part of the country you live in. Jessica Gopalakrishnan, Senior Marketing Manager for HomeGain says, “In some areas of the country things cost more and some people don’t care about some things as much as others do in other areas”. Here’s how HomeGain breaks down the ROI for three of the top four repairs. Cleaning and de-cluttering can create 578% ROI, staging a home was a 340% ROI, landscaping the front and back yards brought a 415% ROI.

Routine maintenance can help, too. “Not washing the windows is something so simple but a big mistake that home-sellers make”, says Gopalakrishnan, “leaving a dirty carpet on the floor is another mistake”.