You want to sell your house in Harlingen or in the Valley and you want to get top dollar, right?
Excellent!
But what do I need to do to accomplish this?
Here are some tips on how to get your home ready to sell if you’re looking for top dollar that the market will bear:
*NOTE: These instructions are if you’re looking to get full retail value for your house. However, if you don’t want to do the things below… or don’t have the time or money to do them, you can still sell your Lower, Mid and Upper RGV house fast for a fair value in a win-win sale that’ll save you time and expense.
1) Clean, clean and clean. Even vacant houses get dusty and dirty so keep it up! Nothing short of gleaming perfection will impress buyers. If you’re not a total clean freak, hire someone who is to help you out until you sell.
If you’re a slob, consider finding somewhere else to live while you show your house. Maybe you can bribe your cleanest friend to trade houses with you? Seriously, keeping everything immaculate really helps buyers feel comfortable in your space. Nothing stops people faster from buying faster than feeling grossed out.
2) Cultivate a cohesive, neutral style. You don’t have to paint everything off-white. In fact, some subtle colors can really help change the perception of spaces – for example, a soft yellow will help brighten up a dark kitchen, while a deep dark blue or green will help a bright bedroom to feel like a calm place to sleep (but be careful, dark colors will also make rooms feel small).
Spend the money to get high-quality paint and professional help. Subconsciously people will pay more money for a property with just the right colors and very neat lines – it makes the home feel better built even though it’s just paint.
Optical illusions are real and psychologists study this stuff. Don’t believe me?
Look it up and don’t neglect the outside and just do the inside or anything else that’s unbalanced.
3) Fix or replace anything that’s broken. Yeah, it might feel like a waste of money to spend an extra couple hundred bucks on a dishwasher that someone else might just pull out and replace again. But really, quite a few buyers will get a home inspection and use the opportunity to negotiate with you. As the seller, you’ll often end up paying more if you try to hide neglected maintenance from the purchaser – and of course, you don’t want to be guilty of fraud.
Make sure you stay in compliance with all the laws. Texas is a non-disclosure State but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to disclose damages in your home that are not visible to potential buyers.
It’s often a good use of money to hire a home inspector to come through before you put the property on the market. If you ask in advance, they’ll often charge you a tiny rate to come back after you’ve done a bunch of minor repairs and deliver you a clean bill of health. Prospective buyers love to see an independent report on the condition of the house – it makes them feel very comfortable with the purchase.
4) Make only necessary improvements. The biggest mistake people make when getting their house ready to sell is over-improving. They often spend too much money on customized frills that can’t be recovered in the sale.
Paint is about the only safe investment – it’s easy to overspend on almost everything else and it’s easy to get ripped off by unscrupulous contractors (careful!).
It’s important to know what improvements will produce a return on investment to avoid wasting money.
5) Get expert opinions. You should definitely speak with a credible and honest realtor who will help you price your property but be honest with them. If you’re going to market the property on your own, don’t make enemies by lying about your intentions. Great realtors are rare but they make more money for their clients than they earn.
6) Have a really great marketing plan. Again, great realtors earn their value by doing this work and spreading the advertising expenses across many clients. It’s pretty expensive and time-consuming to start from scratch on your own but if you’re already a marketing expert, you’re ahead of the pack.
If you’re not, spend the time listening to what the best realtors do to sell houses in the Valley – just to educate yourself on the options.
7) Get a cash offer. We buy houses in Lower, Mid and Upper RGV, TX and the surrounding area and we do all the work so you don’t have to deal with any of this stuff.
Don’t Want To Do The Above Things Yourself But Still Want To Sell Your House Fast?
While everyone wants to get as much as they possibly can from their house sale… not everyone can do the things or wants to do the things required to sell it at full retail value to an end buyer.
Doing the repairs, cleaning the property up, upgrading the property, marketing the property… those all take money and can take lots of time.
If you have the funds to do these things... AND you can wait the 6-9+ months it takes to sell houses in this market, then you’ll be better off financially to do those things then list it on the MLS (the main property listing service that real estate agents use).
If you don’t have the funds to do these things... AND can’t wait months to sell your house., then you may be a perfect fit for our local Lower, Mid and Upper RGV house buying service. You’ll submit basic info about your house over here on our website, we’ll evaluate your house, we’ll make you a fair all-cash offer and you can decide if it’s a fit for you -there’s no obligation to accept it and it’s free!.
Then we can close FAST (often times within 7 days) if you need us to.
Take a look at what we’ll pay you not to do anything versus the time, expense and hassle involved with doing it on your own.
So if you’re still asking “what do I need to do to sell my house in Lower, Mid and Upper RGV and the surrounding area”… now you have 2 solid options:
Either…
- Fix the property up and get it all nice and ready with the steps above to sell it at top dollar
- Let us do all of the work and we’ll make you a cash offer on your house in AS-IS condition. This saves you time, money and gets the hassle off of your hands
If you need to sell a property near Lower, Mid and Upper RGV, we can help you. We buy properties like yours from people who need to sell fast.