Every home seller wants to get as much money as they can from their sale. If you’ve owned your home for a while and the real estate market in your area is healthy, odds are your home is worth a lot more than what you paid for it. But there are other ways for you to increase your profits even more.
Here are some ways to boost your profit margin when you sell your home.
1. Don’t Advertise Your Motivations
You could be in a position to want to sell quickly and unload your property for whatever reason, but don’t let buyers know that. Any indication that you’re in a bit of a rush to sell will do little for your pocketbook. Buyers are always sniffing out deals, and they may lowball you if they think you’re in a position to sell fast.
Revealing your motivation to sell could compromise your negotiating power with buyers. Instead, keeping your motivations to yourself and your agent will help you increase the odds of selling for a higher price.
2. Price it Right
One of the best determining factors to selling for a profit is the price point that you list at. It’s absolutely critical to list at an appropriate price that’s in line with the current market, regardless of where you stand as a seller.
This is one of the many times that having a real estate agent in your corner is extremely handy. Your agent will pull a report listing comparable homes in the area that recently sold so that you can get a better idea of how much you can realistically list at.
You might be tempted to list very high in an effort to sell high, but that tactic typically backfires. Prospective buyers will simply overlook your listing if you’ve priced well above what the current market dictates. You’ll wind up with a stale listing that will sit on the market longer than it needs to.
At this point, your listing will become vulnerable to lowball offers as buyers may assume you’re more desperate to sell. That’s the last thing you want to do as a seller looking to make a profit. If your home is priced too low, you might get a quick offer, but you could lose money because the offer is below what it should be.
In either scenario, you risk losing money. Make sure that your property is priced appropriately for the current market in order to get the best price.
3. Invest in Professional Home Staging
Buyers are drawn to homes that they are attracted to and are able to easily and quickly develop an emotional attachment to. The best way to make sure your home is aesthetically appealing to the buyers looking in your area is to stage it appropriately. That means giving it a thorough cleaning job, neutralizing the decor, depersonalizing, and furnishing according to what your target buyer is looking for in a home.
While you may be able to tackle this job on your own, you stand a much better chance of attracting buyers with the help of a professional home stager. These experts are skilled at identifying the type of buyers searching in a particular neighborhood and understanding exactly what they’re looking for in a new home.
By determining what these people want, stagers are able to decorate and furnish a home appropriately to attract as many buyers as possible. By doing so, the odds of selling faster and for more money are a lot higher.
While it’s true that you would have to pay a home stager up front for their services, it shouldn’t be looked at as another expense. Instead, home staging should be viewed as an investment. You can recoup all the money you spend on paying a home stager while still getting even more money back when you sell. If using these services helps your home sell for just 1% more, they’ll more than pay for themselves.
4. Take Beautiful Real Estate Photos
In addition to the right listing price, one of the most important factors when selling a home is the quality of the photos used for marketing. High-quality photos are absolutely crucial for presenting your home in the best light possible. Considering the fact that most buyers start their search for a home online, you’ve got to make sure the images you have posted are as good as they can possibly be.
Many buyers end up choosing homes based on how well they’re presented in photos. You’ve only got one chance to make a first impression, and good-quality photos are the way to capitalize on that.
5. Make the Right Improvements
If your home could stand a little bit of improvement, making the necessary upgrades can help add more value to it come sale time. Of course, this work will cost you some money, but if you focus on the right types of improvements, you can realize a better ROI.
Upgrading your home can eat into your profits, but certain jobs can actually help you to sell your house for more money. For instance, painting has been shown to be one of the best improvements to make to a home when it comes to the cost versus the perceived increase in value. For just a couple of hundred dollars and a weekend worth of work, you can make your home appear much more attractive to buyers and even command more money at the negotiating table.
Other smart improvements that bring in a healthy ROI include refacing kitchen and bathroom cabinets, painting the front door, and boosting curb appeal. Just make sure to choose your upgrades wisely in order to recoup as much money as possible at the negotiating table.
6. Know Your Buyer
It’s helpful to understand your buyer’s motivations when you’re at the negotiating table. You want to be in the driver’s seat when wheeling and dealing in order to get the price up as much as possible.
Does the buyer have to buy quickly because they’ve already closed on their current home? Are they financially capable of paying what you’re asking? Knowing the answers to questions like these can help you control the negotiating process and sell for top dollar.
7. Maximize Your Tax Benefits
While selling your home for a high price is your main objective, you can keep more money in your pockets when it comes time to pay taxes. Any profit you make on the sale of your home could be slashed because of the big tax cut you’ll have to make if you simply take those proceeds and put them in the bank.
The good news is that there are some ways to minimize your tax payments. You can deduct some of your taxes on things such as your closing costs, marketing costs, and realtor commissions. Make sure you get a tax professional on board to help you take advantage of all the tax breaks possible.
8. Work With an Experienced Real Estate Agent
While real estate agents are paid by commission, their fee is well worth it. Not only can these professionals help you make the most money on the sale of your home, they can also help you save as much money as you can in several other areas of the sale process.
The Bottom Line
Selling for top dollar is obviously one of your top priorities. By implementing any one – or all – of the above tips, you can realistically increase your profits when you finally close on a real estate deal.
