How to prepare for selling

Today I want to talk about preparing your home to sell. I really want to dive in to what you should and shouldn’t do, but probably most importantly, what will give you the greatest return on investment.

In Los Angeles, if you’re selling a house, you probably know that you’re reaping profits from some of the highest prices in history. Plus, we have such incredible demand from a variety of things, everything from low interest rates to a millennial generation having children to a burgeoning tech scene and an ever present entertainment industry, to arguably some of the best weather in the entire world.

Yes, if you’re doing things correctly, you should absolutely get multiple offers on your house. That being said, you’ve only got one house to sell, so you better make sure you do everything you can to make it stand out. The truly great houses fly off the shelves, and the ones that don’t reach that level, well...they can sit. And you don’t want that.

So here is exactly how I counsel my sellers on the ins and outs of preparing your home for sale.

First, you have to get people in the house. The number one indicator of selling price is demand, and demand is generated first and foremost by interest. All the buyers are scouring the internet and getting listings sent to them by their real estate agents, and every single one of them see the photos before they see the house in person.

Thus, we have to make sure the house looks nice enough for many buyers to quickly send messages to their agents saying, “I HAVE to go see that house”.

How do you do that? Well here are a few strategies that I recommend.

The first is staging. There are many levels to staging, and staging doesn’t have to be a big production, you can do partial staging or other techniques as well. I made a whole video about staging pros and cons and the different types of staging, so if a deep dive into this topic interests you, check that out.

But staging depersonalizes a home, it cleans it up, it makes spaces feel brighter and more open, and allows people to feel what an ideal use of the space could be. Staging always has a return on investment, both in money and in decreasing the time it takes to sell your home. And, it keeps people excited about your house all the way through escrow, since they have to come back multiple times and learn all the nitty gritty details during inspections.

You really can’t go wrong with some level of staging.

Second is paint. This is an easy one, a fresh coat of paint just makes a space feel fresh. Not only how the home smells, but the sense that it can easily brighten everything up. I hate to be boring on this one, but there’s no denying it: white paint works.

Anything other than white will feel darker automatically, and look...yeah it’s not the most innovative choice, but leave the creativity to your new buyer. Keep it simple, and keep it white. Bright and airy is the name of the game for any house.

Third is landscaping! It’s a must that you at least have a gardener come. Get all the leaves swept up, get the weeds pulled, get the grass mowed. Especially do this before photos, you don’t want an overgrown lawn in the professional photography. If you want to put together a small budget for adding to landscaping, it tends to be one of the best uses of money you can spend on a house, so go for it, you will make it back.

Finally, a professional cleaning really helps. If you’ve decided not to spend any money on staging or paint, at the very least people should feel like they’re walking into a spotless home. A couple hundred bucks for a deep clean could actually have thousands of dollars of return.

Now of course there are other little cosmetic things like making sure there are lightbulbs in every light...and that they match. Take down those dark blinds, put away polarizing artwork, pop a few nice houseplants around the inside, this is all helpful stuff.

If you have a renovation budget, I’m going to do an entire separate video about how to spend renovation money, but to keep it short: kitchen first, then master bathroom.

A kitchen renovation could double your money, and a bathroom renovation could be as much, probably a little less, maybe around 1.5 times your money. But many sellers don’t have 20, 30 thousand or more to spend on renovations right before selling. They want to leave after all! So instead, everything I just mentioned should be able to be done for a few thousand that could 10x that return.

Now let’s talk about non cosmetic stuff. You know, the less fun things, the things few people notice during their initial walkthrough but that come back on inspection reports as big scary expenses.

Your job here is to make a cost benefit call on what a buyer is likely to ask for a credit for versus how much it costs to fix. Generally speaking, a thing I say often to sellers is, “you don’t have to fix it, in fact, you probably shouldn’t fix it, but do expect someone to ask for a credit.” That way, you’re at least mentally prepared.

Unless your roof leaks, pass on the roof. Roofs are super expensive, and it’s unlikely you’ll recoup all of that cost. Just take the credit the buyers will ask for if the roof is at the end of it’s useful life.

If your roof leaks, yeah definitely get that done. It’s not going to be cheap, but not only is it a deal killer for lots of buyers, but it could cause damage that has you further in the hole.

If the heating or cooling system is at half or less of it’s useful life, don’t worry about it. Instead, get a service. For a couple hundred dollars, you can make sure the systems are at least cooling and heating to the proper range so the inspector can come back and say...yeah it’s old but its working fine. If its not doing that, expect credits to be asked for.

If you live in an old house that has it’s cast iron sewer system still in place, consider getting a sewer inspection. If they tell you it’s old but functioning just fine, you’re clear. You’ll likely still have to fight a bit but you can at least hand a buyer the report and say…if it ain’t broke you don’t have to fix it. If there’s something going on there, assess the cost. If it’s only a couple grand, you may want to just get it patched up. Any diligent buyer will do a sewer inspection and come barking back for a credit.

As for termites, this is one you might want to get ahead of. That’s because a lot of termite reports have two options: fumigation and spot treatment. Termite companies have to put the cost of fumigation on there when the problem hits a certain point, but many many times a spot treatment can get the job done at far less cost.

Here you can deliver a clean or at least close to clean termite report to the buyer, that way if they get their own termite inspection, you won’t have to have the fumigation vs spot treatment argument and it will save you that money that they will inevitably ask for.

Finally, one of the biggest return on investments is just to have a handyman come by and do all the little things you’ve been putting off. It should only be a few hundred dollars, and that way your buyer comes back with an inspection report that has lots of little things taken care of and shows you care. Remember, a buyer is far more willing to pay top dollar if they know they’re buying a house from someone who maintained it...even if that maintenance was done by a handyman right before listing it.

Finally, I want to end with one other big tip, and that’s mentally preparing to sell.

Almost everything that I do up to the point of putting a house on the market is helping my sellers with the huge mental and emotional weight of selling their home. This can sometimes be a painful process because of death or divorce, but even in normal circumstances there are memories that can be hard to let go of. I always try to be incredibly understanding and flexible with my sellers. It’s always an intense process.

However, if sellers can try to keep this in mind, it will make the whole process a lot easier. This is not my home, to me it is a house, one that I need to look at objectively and assess exactly what I need to do so I can sell it for as much money as possible. After all, that’s what I’m being paid to do.

So understand that suggestions are only ever being made for your financial benefit. It may feel contrary to the home you built, but a home you live in for many years is very different than a house that sells for the highest price possible. If you can understand those two things are different, it will make the process so much smoother.

Finally, I need to show your home to prospective buyers. Buyers are busy people, they see many many homes, and they need to see them now and on their schedule. If you’re no longer living in the house, perfect, it makes that process infinitely easier. If you’re still living in the house, my advice to you is: be as accommodating and flexible as possible.

When I’m working with buyers, I can’t tell you how many homes I send or get sent that someone wants to see, only to find out they can only show on Saturdays from 1-4 PM. Or only during the week. Or only some other limitation. If you have a dream house, maybe you can get away with this, but more often than not, the buyers say, “well that doesn’t fit into my schedule, I’ll just see it later” and they either forget about it completely or they see another house instead that they want to put an offer in on.

Even for agents, if your seller can’t show a house when the buyers want to see it, many times the reaction is, “why bother? We’re seeing 5 other houses today, I’m sure they will like one of those”. It always increases days on market if you can’t be flexible with showings. And if you just can’t be...wait! Just wait to put the house on the market until you’ve moved out or you can be really accommodating with showings.

Remember, more showings equals more offers equals higher price.

Thank you so much for watching, I hope you learned a few things about how to prepare your house for sale and all the little tips and tricks to make sure you get the highest price possible. It’s not an easy experience, but with a great agent guiding you, you can absolutely make that dollar amount you dream about.

If you’re looking to sell your home, I have a fantastic program that really just blows what most other listing agents offer out of the water. I pay for all of the aspects of digital marketing from photography, drone footage, videography, 3D walkthrough and virtual open houses right out of my entry level commission structure.

No other listing agent is doing this and if they are they’re going to pass the cost along to you or mark up their cost to you, but I pay for it, no questions asked. It’s my way of bridging the gap between the virtual and the personal.

Also, if you’re interested in purchasing your first home, I LOVE working with first time home buyers and taking a deep dive into what you’re looking for and how we can strategize to make that happen in this still very competitive market in Los Angeles.

To be successful you need the right agent who can market you as the right buyer and understand how to craft the right offer, otherwise MAN, is it going to be tough out there.