When most sellers put their home on the market the first question they ask is “How long will it take my home to sell?”

Unfortunately, I cannot give them a 100% guarantee on when it will sell. I normally mention that it does depend on the market, but other factors can speed the sale of your home along quite well. For instance, having a home that is well taken care of and selling it for the right price will put you a step ahead of the rest of those that are selling similar homes in your area.

This article was written to give you some hints and insights into a few things that you can do to help your home sell faster.

1. Time is money
From the moment your house is placed on the market until the day it sells it will costing you money. You want to sell your home as soon as possible, but this is hard for many sellers to achieve because they think it’s necessary to receive their full asking price. While you are waiting to sell your home you will still incur such fees as a mortgage if you have one, property taxes, any associated selling costs, and maintenance to the home.

Depending on your home you may be better off letting it go for slightly less than you had hoped for and ridding yourself of the bills that you have while you are trying to sell. If you are that serious about only getting your asking price your house could remain on the market for an extended amount of time, years even. If you consider yourself a motivated seller and have already moved out of your home this could be extremely expensive for you. The average person that has moved out of a house they are trying to sell pays about 1,000 extra dollars a month in mortgages and associated fees while they wait to sell the home.

This does not mean that you won’t get your asking price. In some instances you may get a higher bid then what you are asking for! While this is nice, you cannot always expect this to happen.

2. See that your home is in perfect shape
The majority of home buyers want to purchase a home that does not need to be modified in any major ways. Not very many people want to buy a home and have to spend months fixing it up. Normally they just want to move in and enjoy their new home.

If your home is a fixer upper you will find few buyers that are willing to take on the possible task of owning your home. If you do find any willing potential buyers than you can expect that they will want compensated for the work they will have to do by paying you a lower price.

If you want to sell your home for the maximum amount the home is worth, and you want to do it quickly, your home has to be in perfect condition or at least as close to it as you can possibly manage. The majority of homes that are placed on the market need minor amounts of work and maintenance fixing. I am not advising you to spend major amounts of money right before you go to sell your home, but your home will need to be as close to perfect as possible if you are hoping to get full market value for it.

3. Overpricing your home
The best advice I can give you here is to seriously consider going with your agent’s opinion. If you are using a real estate professional to sell your home and they inform you where your home should be priced according to market standards then your best bet is to listen to the professional. Unfortunately, the majority of homes that are sitting on the market and not selling are there because they are overpriced. Many of these homes were placed in a price range about what a real estate professional recommended.

In some cases a real estate agent will tell you anything to get you to sign. I don’t agree with this practice because I am here to sell your home, not cause you unneeded stress and wasted money. I have heard of people that have put their home up for sale for money hoping someone out of the area would find it and buy it. They were unaware that things like that rarely, if ever, happen. Most out of state or area buyers have a Buyer’s Agent. These agents look out for the best interest of the buyer and that includes seeing that he/she is not overcharged.

Generally people determine price by market value and other factors. These factors will vary and some people will pay more for a home that has certain features that they are looking for. This is rare though. Normally people only want to pay what something is worth according to the market and sometimes they don’t even want to pay that.

The most common things used to help determine price are:

* Economic conditions
* The amount of buyers
* The comparison of similar homes
* The physical appearance of the home
* The available financing
* The school district
* The desirability of your home compared to others in your area

4. Make sure you are willing to work with your buyers
The only sellers that sell immediately are ones that are motivated to sell their home in the first place. These sellers do not price their home at inflated prices in hopes of getting more then their home is worth. They do not add emotion into the sale. They see that their home is in sellable order. An unmotivated seller refuses to take an offer even if it is a fair one based on market standards. You shouldn’t get greedy because you won’t sell your home that way.

You should at least consider all offers that are presented to you and that are not too low. Even if the offer seems low for you, you can always make a counter offer and put the ball back in their court. Occasionally home sellers will go back and forth in counter offers and end up agreeing on a price and making arrangements to sell their home. An unmotivated seller will not make a counter offer and their home will sit on the market for who knows how long.

5. Consider leaving the house while it’s being shown
If you listed your home with any real estate agent the best thing you can do is to let them do their job. If the agent is bringing someone over to look at the house the best thing you can do to help is to leave.

A buyer is not going to be comfortable to look around the house and critique it seriously if you are there standing under his feet. Instead what will happen is they will look at your home without paying it much attention and leave without any form of agreement to buy your home. The whole appointment would be rather worthless.

The buyer’s agent will not advise their client if you are there either. They normally will inform a client of the pros and cons of the home they are looking at but they will not do this if you are available to hear all the words they are saying. It doesn’t matter where you go as long as you are not in the house while they are showing the house to the potential buyers. If you are going to take the advice and go out, you should also take your pets with you if you have any as some people will refuse to buy a home that has pets in it.

If you have any questions on how to sell your home quickly or anything about selling your home feel free to call on me. I will do my best to see that your goals are met as quickly as possible.