Prepare to sell your house

Preparation for Sale

House buyers are in an amazing situation: they are making a spectacularly expensive purchase after only 30-60 minutes of touring the product. This means that they operate based on first impressions and rapid evaluation of the spaces. And thus your house needs to hold up well to this type of evaluation. It’s worth reading a whole book on this, but to summarize quickly:

Think Open and Airy: When buyers walk in, they need to be confronted with light, space, and charm. So eliminate anything that blocks this feeling – open the curtains, clean the windows, and remove stuff like baby gates or pet crates.

Renovations: In higher-end markets, strategic renovations including a modern kitchen, knocking out unnecessary interior walls, and (oddly enough) a great front door will return more than 100% of the cost in eventual resale. The key is in watching that cost: even hiring out all the work, a new kitchen with good cabinets, stone countertops and quality fixtures should total under $25,000 rather than the $75,000 many people end up forking over.

Stage the House: If it’s empty, hire a staging company. If you still live there, remove most of your stuff and have only sparse, tasteful decor. Selected artwork, a nice table arrangement with flowers, the perfect books on the shelves, and so on. Buyers will claim that they can look past a mess, but it just isn’t true. The well-staged houses get statistically higher and faster offers, which makes it a profitable choice – especially in higher priced markets. I spent about $1600 to hire Design Matters Home, which covered design plus all the furniture rental and moving.

Photography: this is critical, cheap, and yet usually overlooked. How many real estate listings feature blurry, dim pictures of the corners of rooms taken by the listing agent running around with an iPhone for a few minutes? To do it right, you need an SLR camera with a tripod and roughly a 10-22mm wide angle lens. Or hire an affordable pro – I was able to get a great real estate photographer to shoot my house, plus process and deliver about 50 digital images for under $100.


Published by: Bradford Miller Law, P.C.
10 S. LaSalle, Suite 2920
Chicago, IL 60603
312-238-9298

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago residential real estate attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago Landlord Attorney, Chicago eviction attorney, Estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago real estate attorney fees, Chicago estate planning attorney. This is intended to be advertising. Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.

7 Steps Of Selling A House

1. Prepare to sell your house
Home selling has become more complex than it used to be. New seller disclosure statements, longer and more mysterious form agreements, and a range of environmental concerns have all emerged in the past decade.

2. Find a Realtor
In the maze of forms, financing, inspections, marketing, pricing, and negotiating, it makes sense to work with professionals who know the community and much more. Those professionals are the local Realtors who serve your area.

3. Set the list price of your home
Several factors, including market conditions and interest rates, will determine how much you can get for your home. In other words, home selling is part art, part science, part marketing, and part negotiation.

4. Market your house for maximum exposure
Your Realtor should share a marketing plan with you, but the more you know about the process of selling your home the easier it is to support your Realtor’s efforts. Make your home sell fast with these tips.

5. Negotiate a real estate offer
Perhaps the most complex moment in the sales process comes when you get an offer for your home. Whether you have one offer or several to consider, these tips will help you navigate the negotiation.

6. The art of settling
When you have a signed contract with the buyer for your home, you may feel as if you can breathe a sigh of relief. But before you can completely relax you need to get to the settlement table.

7. Plan your move
Some of the activities required to sell your home can actually help with the moving process. For example, by cleaning out closets, the basement, and the attic, you will have less to do once the home is under contract.

Published by: Bradford Miller Law, P.C.
10 S. LaSalle, Suite 2920
Chicago, IL 60603
312-238-9298

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago residential real estate attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago Landlord Attorney, Chicago eviction attorney, Estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago real estate attorney fees, Chicago estate planning attorney. This is intended to be advertising. Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.