Preparing To Sell A House: How To Get Your Asking Price

Your home is possibly your most prized possession. Not only because of its worth but also because of its sentimental value. That’s why when you’re preparing to sell a house, you need to take every precaution to guarantee you’re receiving an advantageous price that’s in line with your home’s true value.

You can divide the preparation for selling your home into two stages – before listing and after listing – and several distinct steps, including planning and research, repairing, and decision-making.

Asking Price Vs Sale Price

When you’re preparing to sell a house, ideally you want to receive offers above the asking price. To guarantee this, you’re required to be thorough and purposeful before listing and following your agents’ directions and advice once your home is on the market.

Why do you want to receive the asking price for your property?

The asking price is the amount you list your property on the market. The sale price is the amount the buyer will pay for your home. You want your home to sell at or above the asking price, especially if you’re in the process of moving to another property.

Stage One of Preparing To Sell A House: Before Listing

Understand The Cost of Selling A Home

You’re likely selling your home to ensure you’re able to put a downpayment on another home. With this in mind, be sure to understand all the costs involved in selling a home. In NSW, agents receive between 2% and 3.5% of the sale cost of the home. Additionally, you have other costs like marketing, lender fees, solicitor costs, Marketing costs range between $1,000 and $10,000, solicitors can cost anywhere between $150 and $1500, and home staging costs about $6000. For the average home in Sydney, which is well over $1 million, this will be a total cost of at least $42,500. You’ll need to subtract that cost from the amount you’ll receive after paying off your current mortgages and paying taxes for an accurate depiction of how much you will walk away with.

Get An Evaluation

At Citione International, we strongly advocate that you have your home evaluated by a professional. To ensure your home selling experience is advantageous, you should first arrange a real estate agent to evaluate your home to determine it’s worth on the market. Real estate agents have access to real-time data that enable them to ascertain the value of your home based on up-to-date markers. This evaluation will give you an idea of what your home will sell for, even during uncertain times.

Having an evaluation also gives the estate agent the time to find structural damage you should fix, and work on an action plan.

Find A Real Estate Agent

You want a real estate agent that’s helpful, honest, but importantly experienced. The real estate agent you choose will affect every aspect of selling a home, including the sale price of the home, how many buyers show genuine interest, how long your home is on the market, and the after-sale experience. You want to be getting a first-class experience when listing your property with an estate agent, so ask them a list of basic yet pertinent questions:

What is your experience selling my type of home?

What is your ratio for selling homes at asking price versus below-asking price?

What methods do you use when marketing a home?

The real estate agent’s answers to these questions will help you decide whether or not they’re the ideal fit for the sale of your property

Fix Structural and Cosmetic Damage

When you’re preparing to sell a house, the most beneficial action you can take is to fix structural damage and work on cosmetic damage afterward.

Buyers are entitled to complete an inspection before settlement. If you haven’t fixed structural damage, be upfront with buyers. Because hiding blatant structural damage will only make buyers less likely to trust you. This can be both off-putting and which buyers may consider deceptive, especially if you are trying to cover up structural damage with cosmetic improvements.

Also, inspectors will easily be able to uncover structural damage, and any structural damage will drastically affect a buyer’s desire to pay the asking price for your home.

If you’re on a budget, think about structural damage that will have cost less to fix but have the greatest impact on the value of your property. Fixing leaks, cracks, and mold are all wonderful options.

Also, be aware that buyers have a 5-day cooling-off period at which point they can renege on the contract with only a 0.25% penalty. Which for a house of $1 million is only $250.

Therefore, to avoid these sorts of situations either rectify your property and if you’re unable to rectify your property then be upfront about damage.

Choosing An Appropriate Selling Method

You can sell a home through a private treaty, tender, or auction.

Private treaty is the most common method of selling property in Australia. You list your home, interested buyers attend inspections, and you accept an offer that you deem is suitable. This method is popular because it works. At Citione International, we’ll market your home to our network of interested buyers and advocate for your property among buyers to ensure you’re receiving the best value for your home. It’s this personal service that both buyers and sellers prefer. Because it gives them control over the transaction, time to make the right decision, and since they’re not aware of other offers on the home buyers are more likely to base their offer on what they believe is a reasonable amount.

If you choose to sell your home via auction, however, you’re at the mercy of the room. There are cold auction days where fewer buyers show interest, and your home is never able to pick up the momentum needed to sell at a reasonable price. In the past, you may have seen crowds gathered outside homes in Sydney and thought that auction is, however, they may not be as much legitimate interest as you may think.

Private tender is the least common method. However, it can be more effective than an auction because it requires buyers to determine how much they should bid based on their perceived value of the property.

Stage Two of Preparing To Sell A House: Once Listed

Consider Staging Your Home

Home staging is becoming incredibly popular amongst sellers because it allows buyers to envision themselves in the home. Essentially, when you’re preparing to sell a house home, staging is a superior method to make your property more compelling for buyers.

Therefore, it’s prudent to hire a professional to stage your property as they have in-depth knowledge and experience on interior design and current trends. Besides, they’ll also know how to stage your home to highlight its most desirable features.

Set Your Schedule

Selling a home is time-consuming. You want to be using your time efficiently so that you’re not delaying a sale. Therefore, ask your real estate agent to give you an idea of what your calendar will look like while your property is still on the market. Having an idea of the process, which can include leaving the home for an inspection and being available for settlement will help you manage your time.

Listen To Your Real Estate Agent

Your real estate agent isn’t your enemy but rather your ally. Just like you, we at Citione International want your home to sell for the asking price. By listening to our advice about the best listing strategies, advertising, home maintenance, and a variety of other tasks, you’ll find that it’s far easier to sell at or above the asking price.

Remember that we have the experience and expertise to make your home most appealing to buyers.

Be Ready To Answer Questions

Although you should listen to the advice of your real estate agent, no one knows your property better than you. Therefore, when it comes time to sell your property, you can give your real estate agent invaluable information that can help accelerate the sale.

This information can include insight into your neighbours and neighbourhood dynamics and demographics of the neighbourhood, etc. When the agent is pitching your property to prospective buyers, this information can help amplify their interest and drive favourable action in the form of a better offer. Because, if you put yourself in the mind of a buyer, you’re not only buying a house, but you’re buying into the neighbourhood’s dynamics, long life neighbours, etc. A home can always be remodeled or upgraded, but a terrible neighbour is a pain.