Seller's Resources

Selling your home is a big financial and emotional task, which requires lots of planning. So before you decide to put your home on the market, here are four questions to consider.

What is my home worth?

Several factors go into determining your home’s market value. These include the condition of the property, square footage, location, amenities, as well as recent comparable property sales. For a snapshot of your home’s current value, you can enter your address into a free online value estimator tool. Alternatively, you can look at a recent property tax bill to get your home’s tax assessed value, which is a percentage of your home’s fair market value. If you know your state’s assessment rate (which is usually between 80 and 90 percent), you can estimate fair market value by dividing your tax assessed value by that assessment rate.

How can I sell at the highest price possible?

There are several simple, low-cost things you can do to boost the value of your home. These include eliminating clutter, washing windows and walls, and installing higher wattage bulbs to create a brighter environment. Larger projects, like adding bedrooms and renovating kitchens and bathrooms, typically yield more substantial increases in sales price. Staging your home, which helps paint a picture for how buyers will use their new space, can also add value.

How long will my home be on the market?

The time your home spends on the market depends on several factors, including location, how competitively your home is priced, and how aggressively your home is marketed. Statistics show that if a home is properly priced, an offer should come in within the first 12 showings. If you want to speed up the sales process, don’t underestimate the value of staging. Research shows that well-staged homes can sell up to 32 percent faster than homes that aren’t staged.

How can an agent help?

A real estate agent can help with all aspects of the selling process, from pricing to marketing to handling the intricacies of closing. An agent will negotiate on your behalf to secure the best price – and quickest sale – possible. Looking for an agent who can help guide you through the selling process? Feel free to contact our agents or make an appointment at our one of our offices in Eatonton or Greensboro.

Staging your home is a proven strategy for speeding up the sales process. It can even help boost your home’s value when offers start coming in. By highlighting your home’s strengths and giving prospective buyers a sense of how they’d utilize different spaces, you can help these prospects develop emotional attachments to your home.

Stage Your Home

Here are some quick tips for helping you along with the staging process:

Pay attention to lighting

Great lighting is crucial for making your home look warm and welcoming. If you notice that some areas of your home are dark and dreary, increase the wattages of the lightbulbs in the fixtures and lamps. A good rule of thumb is to have a total of 100 watts of lighting for every 50 square feet of interior space. Also, you should strive for three different types of lighting per room: accent lighting (on a wall or table), task lighting (such as a reading or under-cabinet light), and ambient lighting (overhead).

Update your appliances

Alright, so you might not be willing to spend thousands of dollars on installing new, stainless steel appliances just for staging. However, studies show that new appliances in the kitchen garner high returns for sellers, which means you stand to get a better price for you home. A great, inexpensive solution is to apply stainless steel stick-on coverings to all of your appliances. These coverings can quickly transform an outdated kitchen into one that screams ultra-modern.

Get rid of unnecessary furniture

It should go without saying that when staging a home, you need to get rid of clutter. However, sellers often forget about some of the biggest causes of clutter: namely, couches, chairs, and tables. Having too much furniture in your home can make it seem small and cramped. So before you start showing your home, take a walk around and remove furniture items that you can live without. You don’t need to get rid of everything (afterall, you want the space to look lived-in), but you want to make sure you’re maximizing available space.

Contact Georgia Real Estate Agents

If you have questions about selling your home, reach out to experienced agents at Kim and Lin Logan Real Estate. We have offices in Eatonton and Greensboro, Georgia.