Selling your home requires preparation

Here are some things you should do before selling your home

Buying a home is an expensive, tedious process. There are many things you need to do before you buy a home; you can just run out and grab one as if you were picking up a gallon of milk. The same applies if you have a home to sell. The last thing you want to do is hang a sign in the front yard and have someone say, “I”ll take it!” five minutes later. There are some things you need to do to get ready to sell, and your life will be much easier if you plan ahead.

Here are some things you ought to do before you sell your home:

• Get your home ready to sell - This should be obvious. If you would like to realize the highest price for your property, you need to make sure that it is in top shape. This means making repairs where necessary and possibly repainting the exterior. The interior of the home will probably need a thorough cleaning and a general straightening up. Don’t forget to take care of landscaping issues, too. Mow the lawn, trim the hedges and get the leaves out of the pool, if you have one.

• Decide how you plan to sell - Do you want to sell it yourself? Are you going to hire a realtor? While it’s easier to have a realtor sell it, you may save money by doing it yourself. If you do elect to go with a realtor, you’ll need to find one, and then you will need to determine how much it will cost you to sell the property, as the realtor will take a commission.
• Get an appraisal - The realtor will have a good idea of what your home is worth, but with appraisal fraud rampant in the lending industry, it is probably in your best interest to get your own idea of what the property is worth. It can’t hurt.
• How much do you still owe? - It would be a good idea to contact your mortgage company and find out how much you still owe on your existing mortgage, if you have one. That way you will have some idea of how much money you will have left after you sell the house and pay the expenses of selling it.
• Get a loan or two - If you need to buy another house after you sell this one, it would be a good idea to get pre approved for a loan ahead of time. That will make it much easier to buy when the time comes. It also wouldn’t hurt to take out a home equity line of credit on your existing home before you sell it. That will give you additional flexibility should you need to put a down payment on a new house before you sell the old one.

It isn’t all that difficult to sell a house, but preparation can make the difference between an easy task and a chore. If you do your homework, the transition between your existing house and your new one can be easy. If not, you may find yourself doing a bunch of unnecessary work.