3 Imporant Things You Should Do Before Selling Your Home

You only have once chance to make a good first impression. This applies to meeting new people as well as other situations such as selling your home. That is why it is very important to always put your best foot forward.  There is a reason you tips for selling your homeare to dress nice during an interview no matter what the job is, being presentable sells better and is more appealing than the alternative.  This goes true for when you place your home on the market also.  Putting your best foot forward does not mean lying or being deceptive to anyone, there is just an important aspect to show others the full potential of what you are trying to sell.  You should take the following tips into consideration before you sell your home, keep in mind after this is all said and done you may change your mind and want to keep the house after all!  Either way the home improvements will be well worth it.

1. Maximize Curb Appeal

The best selling aspect of a home is what I like to consider the initial “meet and greet” while you are staring down at the directions and trying to navigate the new unfamiliar neighborhood you pull up to what seems to be your destination.  Those feelings you get when you pull up to the curb, confirm the address, shut off your vehicle and look at the house you are considering while briefly comparing it to the neighbor’s houses.  This is known in the real estate world as curb appeal.  At this point the person looking at the house has already predetermined whether they will consider the rest of the house or just being polite to complete the walk-through.  The curb appeal must include everything that can be seen standing in the front yard much like paint, landscaping, lights and fences.  Some items that homeowners should also consider would be a clean roof and gutters, a freshly pressure washed drive way and sidewalks along with clean windows and nice blinds.  If you are trying to get the highest dollar amount for your home and have neglected your grass, the fence has missing panels and there is a small forest growing out of your gutters I promise you people will notice and move onto the next home or give you a low ball offer.  Keep in mind a lot of these items can easily be completed by the average homeowner with not a lot of money……just be ready to sweat a little.

2. Clean, Clean, and Clean Some More!

The next item I would recommend is your attention to the cleanliness of the interior of your house.  You have lived in your house for years and cleaned once a week or even more often but are there things you have missed?  Cleaning before selling should be extreme cleaning!  This should include scrubbing base boards, dusting doors, door frames, light fixtures, fans and vanities, inside drawers and behind furniture (yes even the pieces that haven’t been moved in 10 years).  You should be pulling out the washer and dryer to wipe, dust and mop behind them along with polishing and resealing that stainless steel sink in the kitchen.   Anything you can clean, polish, scrub and shampoo I would highly recommend doing before putting your home on the market.

3.  De-Clutter and Pack Away Everything But The Bare Essentials

Clutter is another big item that many might not even realize because these items have been accumulated over the past several years and have made homes on shelves, drawers and coffee tables.  When people tour a home they can understand you are stilling living in the house but they don’t need to see every knick-knack on the mantles, counters and book shelves from the last 20 years.  The potential buyer is looking around to see where their big screen TV would fit and how they could make it their home.  With this said you need to de-clutter and since you are looking to move I would recommend beginning to pack the clutter in boxes and put it in the attic or even a storage unit.  If you keep the bare essentials required to live it will make it much easier for the potential buyer to visualize it as their own.  Also there are times when even removing things like large pieces of furniture from living areas or even spare bedrooms that could make a difference on how big or small the spaces look.  The extra king size bed in your spare bedroom and 12 piece sectional couch may be nice but if it dwarfs the rooms they are in than your home may not be as appealing as it could be.

These ideas are extrememly beneficial and inexpensive when looking to sell your home. With a little elbow grease and a fresh new look you will give your house a better chance at selling for your asking price.  While you are preparing your home to be put on the market make sure and keep up the research on your new potential home with the tools on www.MoversAtlas.com.

Is Selling Your Home FSBO Right For You?

If you can do something yourself why would you ever pay someone thousands of dollars to do it for you?  Okay so most people can’t climb on their house and start replacing their roof or even go out and purchase a new air conditioner to be selling a home for sale by ownerreplaced.  Others feel like painting, setting up garage sales, cleaning and other tasks are just not worth paying for.  On the other hand maybe there is a happy medium of what you feel comfortable and knowledgeable enough to do yourself and what you don’t.  Typically it all comes back to $$$$ money and when you draw the line of how much you are willing to spend.

Selling your house for sale by owner (FSBO) is much like playing the part of a real estate agent and broker.  For a ball park estimate of cost, we will say in the majority of areas will range from 4%-6% of the sale price of the home.  For easy mathematics on a $200,000 sale price of a house that is $8,000-$12,000 right off of the top.  If the home loan is right-side-up you won’t see any of that money because that would just be less money you get back in the end, if you owe money that would be paid directly to the agents.  The following information will give you an idea of how difficult it would be to sell your house FSBO so you can be the judge.

According to the National Association of Realtors they report that the majority of the FSBO properties end up ultimately listing with a relator, reasons why are because most buyers are represented by an agent and the majority of FSBO sellers price their homes too high which scare off potential buyers.  If those are the biggest issues it seems like there is an easy fix and plenty of information available to people.  Current homeowners looking to sell have a ton of resources which include proper pricing, how to hold open houses, making counter offers, escrow, inspections and other legal advice.

The biggest upper hand that the real estate company listing your home would have besides their previous knowledge would be their branding and advertisement.  Their ability to get your home on and off the market maybe better than anything you could pull off.  On the other hand if the home is priced right it may not even matter, just remember it only takes one person to buy it.  Not having the legal knowledge could be very scary to most homeowners that do not want to become a victim but with a little due diligence it would be very possible to find the right information.

Even if you don’t have a large real estate name behind you, getting your property out and seen is still very feasible.  Setting up plans for proper signage and advertisement online along with having your home readily available to be shown and visited is most important.  Of course a relator may know how to take the best pictures and properly stage your house but this can all be done on your own.  A fresh coat of paint, nicely trimmed yard and de-cluttering of rooms like the garage and living areas cab go a long ways when you are presenting your home to buyers.  Just remember the relator isn’t going to clean and paint your house for you, they will just be telling you what they need you to complete so ultimately you are doing the work anyways.

Overall on a scale of 1-10, one being posting an ad on Craigslist and ten being you trying to sell snow cones to an Eskimo I would say with a little effort I would rate this at a seven just because of the legal part.  As far as I am concerned any house can sell in any market depending on your listing price.  Some areas sell houses at the asking prices in a few days, if this took you a little longer would it be worth the potential $10,000 savings?  Just remember you could actually get the buyer lined up and ready to go while just opting for the legal and financial portion of the transaction.  Either way if you are going to buy, buy in Florida and when you do be sure to research your home-to-be using www.MoversAtlas.com.

Florida Sinkhole Information: What Is A Sinkhole And How Can They Effect My Home

Sinkholes, like the one that recently opened up near Legoland in Winter Haven are common in Florida.  While most sinkhole locations in floridasinkholes don’t result in the kind of tragedy that cost a Tampa area man his life earlier this year, they do occur fairly regularly and can pose a significant risk to property.  In this blog post, we’ll explain a little bit about how sinkholes form and why they are so common in Florida; we’ll also give you a few suggestions on how to protect your property from sinkholes.

Sinkholes result naturally from Florida’s unique combination of limestone bedrock and surface/groundwater chemistry.  Much of Florida has what are commonly called karst features underground.  Karst topography is often described as cavernous underground terrain consisting of pits, crevices, voids, underground rivers, etc.  Karsts arise because Florida’s bedrock is made of limestone; which is an alkaline, calcium rich sedimentary rock.  Limestone’s solubility in water and weak acids causes it to become porous; gradually, surface water made slightly acidic by Florida’s soil seeps down into the alkaline limestone and dissolves it. Over eons, this process gives rise to the fissures and caves we see today.  If the cavern that develops is close to the surface, it can cause a sinkhole when the sediment (soil or clay) that constitutes the ceiling of the cavern settles or collapses into it, under its own weight.

Complicated geological explanations aside, from the surface sinkholes can be described quite simply as large depressions in the ground which can vary considerably in terms of depth and width.  Readily identifiable by their round shapes, many of Central Florida’s lakes are simply sinkholes which have filled with water.  While their true geological lifetimes span millennia, as viewed from the surface, sinkholes may open up gradually over a period of days or months, as in the case with the Legoland sinkhole; or they can evolve extremely rapidly as the ground’s surface collapses in minutes.  This was the case with the sinkhole which opened up under a Tampa man’s home earlier this year, tragically taking his life.  Fortunately, rapid-collapse type sinkholes are extremely rare.  The Legoland type sinkhole is much more common.

Florida’s karst geology means that predicting where or when a sinkhole will occur is extremely difficult.  Even with modern drilling equipment, sophisticated analysis of soil/rock samples in the lab, and ground penetrating radar, professional engineers and geologists still have an exceptionally challenging time predicting where, or even if, a sinkhole will occur.  The implications for homeowners are mixed.  On the one hand, if a sinkhole opened up a few blocks away from your house, there isn’t necessarily any reason to expect that you will have a similar experience.  On the other hand, if you live in an area that’s free of reported sinkholes, there’s no guarantee it will stay that way.

Needless to say, the common occurrence of sinkholes in Florida, coupled with the difficulty in predicting where exactly they will open up causes many homeowners a fair amount of anxiety.  The good news is that sinkholes rarely pose a threat to human life.  They do certainly cause structural damage to buildings, but this can be mitigated through insurance.  In fact, many insurance companies that operate in Florida provide sinkhole coverage.  These companies also have the right to deny you coverage if there are sinkholes in the ‘area’ around your prospective home.  The term ‘area’ is loosely defined and policies between companies differ, so it’s best to shop around for pricing and availability.  Chances are, even if you’re in a risky ‘area’, there will still be someone willing to provide coverage.

If you’d like to see a map of sinkholes throughout Florida, check out the MoversAtlas MoveMap, it contains sinkholes and other ‘subsidence features’ throughout the state.  The map is composed of voluntary sinkhole reports, so it tends to biased towards populated areas.  It’s important to note that there are several maps (some of which are proprietary) used by insurance companies to quantify sinkhole risk, so the one you’re looking at here may be different from what your agent is using, but will give you an idea of how many sinkholes are in your community.  Good luck with your home search!