If you’ve been thinking of putting your home on the market but have hesitated because you felt your home wasn’t ready for sale, now’s a great time to look into speaking with a realtor to get your home on the market. This is because home prices are at all-time highs and mortgage interest rates are at historical lows.
As HomeLight reports in their Top Agent Insights for Spring 2021 report 73% of real estate agents believe that home values have been on the rise in their markets, and 52% of agents reported that bidding wars also share a similar dynamic. Increased demand for homes has also caused a shortage of inventory with 66% of agents reporting severe inventory shortages in their territories.
Considering the tight conditions of today’s housing market, now is one of the best times to put your home on the market, even if it isn't in pristine condition. Here’s a few tips to help make the process easier.
Get an appraisal to know your home’s worth
Before you get too far into the home selling process, you’ll want to get your home appraised so you know what you can expect to get from a home’s sale, and also identify areas where you can make changes to boost the value of your home.
Many homeowners choose to get appraisals through free home appraisal websites. These solutions use a combination of their own proprietary models, along with county auditor and tax records, user submitted information (e.g. types of upgrades), and MLS listings and sales.
While automatic valuation models (AVMs) frequently provide a good starting point on what your home could sell for, they can be weak in accounting for elements such as school district quality, or in areas where there’s little to no comps or sales data.
Take the next steps for a successful sale
After getting your initial valuation, you can then explore your options for selling a home with code violations. The term “code violation” is an extremely broad term which encompases anything that impact’s a home’s safety. These can range from out of date wiring and leaky plumbing to more mundane elements such as incorrectly placed smoke alarms, handrails that don’t turn and end into a wall, and bathroom fans that vent into the attic instead of outside.
While fixing the code violation errors is a sure way to get a home ready for sale, in some cases, repairs can be cost prohibitive which is why some homeowners offer a credit or discount to offset the estimated costs for a buyer to repair the issues after a sale. In today’s tight housing market, you can make a decent profit even after a slight discount.
If your home requires more extensive repairs or if you need cash quickly, you could sell your home “as-is” to an all cash buyer. While these sales are done at lower prices than what a realtor can get, cash sales to instant home buyers (iBuyers) are still reasonable in many cases.
