If you’ve been considering selling your home in Westchester, this is one of the best times in recent years to make the move. Currently, there is a combination of limited suburban inventory, historically low interest rates and a continuing surge in demand for homes ”“ all of which have created an opportunistic time to sell.
Before you put your house on the market, it”™s important to make sure you take a few steps to ensure you are maximizing the return on your valuable asset.
Set up your home to look and feel the best it can be. You can start doing this by arranging a staging consultation with your real estate agent and a professional stager. Your agent will have different stagers who they like to work with depending on the scope of the project and often the consultation is complimentary. This meeting will determine what projects within the home”™s interior and exterior are necessary to showcase your home in the best light.
Artful staging is a way of decorating and arranging furniture in a home with an eye toward selling (rather than living in) a home and can include decluttering, painting, landscaping, deep cleaning and even installing new kitchen appliances or countertops.
Carefully placing furniture in different locations, rearranging certain pieces and possibly eliminating some furniture are part of the process. Your agent may suggest renting pieces if necessary ”“ every home needs a different level of staging, but most properties need some work, and getting a professional opinion is a must.
Hire a real estate agent who will provide high-end photography and video to create the foundation of your marketing plan. Your home must be positioned at its finest to capture prospective buyers, so photography and video are important in marketing and showcasing your property.
In this digital age, when buyers are following the housing market online, beautiful photographs and a captivating video to tour your home are critical. Think of it like online dating for homes; if a buyer doesn”™t like what they see online, they will not want a date with your home. A good agent will act as the art director for your photo shoot, and he or she will work closely with photographers to set up, accessorize and maximize each shot for a magazine quality result.
Price your home accurately. Pricing is an art and not a science. It”™s more than the numbers, but an experienced agent with deep market knowledge, will thread the pricing needle just right to be successful. Land, square footage, recent updates, amenities, location, school district, buyer demand and inventory are all factors considered and analyzed when pricing a home properly for sale.
These three steps are some of the key ways to achieve your goal of realizing the highest possible price, in combination with a smooth and quick sale process. The buyers are out there looking, and your unique and beloved home may be exactly what they want, but make sure to invest the time with a professional to prepare your property for the market.
Linda Filby is the team leader of the Linda Filby Team at Compass. She has been a top 1% Westchester agent since 2018. She can be reached at lindafilbyteam@compass.com and 914-772-5389.
