Can a Home Be Sold If It Isn’t in the Best Condition?

As you prepare to sell your home, you are probably worried about the offers you might receive. Selling a home that isn’t in the best condition can be a challenge.

When you sell a home, it is vital that you look at the home from a buyer’s perspective and not your own. If you are looking to bring out the potential in your home, you should work with a qualified real estate agent specializing in “fixer-uppers.” These tips should give you an idea of where to start to improve the prospects of selling your home successfully.

If you have already acknowledged that your home is not in the best condition, it will take a qualified real estate agent to help you bring out the best in your home to attract buyers. However, it doesn’t hurt to explore why you might feel the way you do about your home.

By looking at your home more objectively, you can begin to decide which features of your home matter and need improvement. Your Realtor can help by ordering a home inspection. However, you will also need to think about what will be required to bring your home up to a suitable condition that will appeal to buyers. Here are a few questions that you should ask yourself about your home:

• How old is the home?
• Is the home now damaged, or has it ever suffered damage?
• What repairs should be made on the home?
• Have you cleaned and updated your home to make it attractive to buyers?

As a seller, you should make sure that you order your own home inspection. Otherwise, you may be at a disadvantage when it comes time for negotiations with buyers. “I discovered this the hard way when the seller used her report to drive down the price,” says Jack M. Guttentag, Professor of Finance Emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “Buyer-ordered inspections are designed, consciously or unconsciously, to provide bargaining ammunition for the buyer by exposing everything that is wrong or might go wrong.”

Home Staging

If you are unsure if buyers will be interested in your home, something as simple as home staging can make the difference. Home staging is where you prepare your home for sale so that buyers can get a better idea of what it would be like to live in your home. The home staging process typically begins with a thorough cleaning and can involve making minor repairs, updating appliances, and furniture. The goal is to make your home appeal more livable and less personalized.

If you have not yet prepared your home to be sold, you may find that this is all you really need to attract potential buyers. Your real estate agent can make the final assessments on home staging ideas.

Renovations

If your home appliances are woefully out of date or your home could use an energy-efficient upgrade, your REALTOR will likely recommend that you make renovations to the home before putting the home on the local market.

Some common renovations that are said to add value to a property include removing a non-structural wall, updating the landscaping, and updating appliances. It is essential to assess exactly how much value certain upgrades really add so that you don’t end up losing money on the home.

“One of the most important things to keep in mind when considering any home improvement project is to not go overboard,” says Shannon O’Brien of realestate.com. “The value of your home is partially determined by the value of your neighbor’s homes, so don’t make improvements that bring your home’s value significantly over the general value of other homes in your neighborhood.”

Damage

Generally, REALTORS recommend that homeowners make repairs to a home before selling. If the home has experienced damage due to a home emergency or natural disaster, it is likely to be covered by an insurance policy. Check with your insurance company first to see if there is any funding available to cover the repairs’ cost.

Alternatively, you may decide to sell your home, “as-is.” However, almost all homes sold under this condition do not sell for anything close to market value. The expectation for a buyer in this situation is that he or she will have to make significant repairs on the home. In addition, an investor will likely also want to turn a profit after covering the costs of making the updates on the home.

Get Assistance from an Agent

If you are really unsure how your home will fair on the market, the best suggestion after preparing your home to be sold is to get a Comparative Market Analysis done by your Realtor. The Comparative Market Analysis will provide a full report on what other homes have sold for in your local market, as well as the number of sales that have recently taken place.

By looking at this data alongside the costs involved to improve your home’s condition, you can get a better idea of what your home might sell for. A qualified real estate agent can help you with pricing and help you create a unique story about your home that will appeal to buyers.

A recent Zillow survey again confirmed that extensive renovations are usually not the shortest path to a sale. Across the board, experts agree: it’s still curb appeal and home staging — staging that highlight’s a home’s best features while downplaying its flaws — that often prove most useful.

So, after your house smells like fresh-baked cookies and your walls have been freed from family photos, and a roaring fire has made the living room warm and inviting … what if those basic staging moves still haven’t produced the offers you know your home deserves?

Staging pros have a lot more tricks up their sleeves. Here are three:

1. Hide Your Demographic. Maybe you’re the parent of four, so your house is full of kids’ bedrooms, toys, and playrooms. Perhaps you’re selling a home or bachelor pad with minimal decor and lots of high-tech devices. Maybe you’re putting that empty nest on the market after living in it for decades. The fact is, staging veterans work from the premise that potential buyers shouldn’t be able to walk into a house and be able to tell how old you are and who lives there. That does make sense since the goal is to cast a wide net — to make the broadest possible group feel as if the place is a perfect fit for them. Broaden your home’s appeal by eliminating those items that are specific to your demographic. You want potential buyers to see the home as theirs, not as one designed for a large family, a single guy, or a pair of empty-nesters!
2. Revamp a Boring Space. Potential buyers go through a mental checklist when they evaluate a house. Functional kitchen? Check. Comfortable living space? Got it. Inviting bedrooms? Sure — but lots of other homes may pass the same test. Surprise your potential buyers by transforming an ordinary space into something unexpected. For example, a spare bedroom could be just a duplicate: welcome, perhaps — but indistinguishable from all the other homes’ third or fourth bedrooms. What if you transform it into a cozy reading nook with bookshelves and a comfortable window seat? Or create a craft room centered on a large worktable, corkboard wall, and shelves? Or, create a spacious walk-in closet with hanging racks, shelving, a full-length mirror, and vanity? Smart staging can transform an ordinary space into something extraordinary … and your home into the one with the ‘sold’ sign out front.
3. Appeal to the Type-A Organizer. A perfectly organized house may exist only in our imagination, but a well-staged home comes close. Now — how about staging your home to give potential buyers the tools to stay organized? Extra shelving units and organizational features in cabinets and pantry make a well-organized kitchen easy to maintain. A modest investment in custom closet organizers will instantly upgrade ordinary closets. Bike storage, heavy-duty shelves, a workbench — even just a couple of wall-mounted pegboard tool organizers — can keep the garage neat as a pin. Maximize the functionality of your home by demonstrating how easy it will be to stay organized in it!

Home staging the extra mile can mean attending to small things that make a difference. Then (one of the larger things) will be to team with an experienced real estate professional — and that’s as simple as giving me a call!