Selling your home in North Vancouver or West Vancouver in a buyer’s market, or even a balanced market often requires patience. Many homes sit on the market for 100 days or longer before finding a buyer. Some may never find a buyer unless they are priced attractively, appeal to buyers’ taste, and satisfy their needs.
But not everyone has the luxury of unlimited time to test the market and wait for the perfect buyer to come along. Perhaps you’ve found a new home that more closely matches your family’s needs but need to sell the current home as a condition of the new purchase. Maybe you’re relocating for work purposes and don’t want to deal with selling the property from afar. Or possibly, the property is an estate sale that needs to be liquidated by an executor or other agent.
In this article we’ll discuss ways in which you can improve on the speed of sale, hopefully without spending heavily on improvements or sacrificing too much on the sale price.
Tip #1: Decluttering
Removing personal effects is key to helping prospective buyers visualize themselves in a new space. Homeowners easily forget how much stuff they’ve accumulated in the years since they purchased, and how much time it actually takes to sort through it all. A good rule of thumb is to empty the property of 75% of all contents.
That may sound extreme, but think of what you actually need to continue living for just the next couple of months. You’d be surprised how little is required. Storage areas should be emptied so viewers can actually see them. Moving companies can affordably store your belongings temporarily until you move into your next property. But donate and discard as much of it as possible to reduce the cost. Cut your losses on things you bought thinking how great it would be but never used. Say goodbye to gifts that were a nice thought, but not something you ever needed. Condense the amount of keepsakes you own to a single box.
Doing it now will save you having to go through it multiple times. Everyone who does this feels liberated, despite how difficult and daunting it seemed at the start.
Tip #2: Cleaning of Interior and Exterior
Now that you’ve decluttered and emptied entire parts of the home, you’ve probably also uncovered dust and dirt that you didn’t even know was there. That stuff was hiding stains and old fixtures that may or may not be rehabilitated.
There’s nothing wrong with selling a property “as is, where is”, but when speed is your goal, you need to either communicate to buyers that it’s a “move in ready” property or it’s an incredible bargain worth the buyer spending their own time fixing up. A new buyer can certainly do their own cleaning, but dirt and stains subconsciously communicate to the market that your property is not well-maintained.
The same is true for the exterior of the property and the landscaping. Pressure washing of walkways, decks, patios, railings and entry steps is an annual necessity in most rainy parts of the North Shore. Raking of garden beds, laying down new top soil and pruning overgrown shrubs doesn’t usually take more than a day or two from a landscaper. A lot can be done to rehabilitate a neglected lawn without going to the full extent of resodding or reseeding the lawn (except in some cases).
Cleaning and landscaping cleanups are the most basic component of a curb appeal improvement plan, which we’ll talk about next.
Tip #3: Strategically Invest in Your Curb Appeal
It’s true that some properties are just too far gone. While they may still have good bones, there’s been no updates in decades, the layout is outdated and the floorspace is insufficient for most families’ needs. No amount of renovations, even a “back to the studs” redesign, will justify the cost. So your tinkering around the edges will also not likely return your investment at sale. This kind of property needs redevelopment.
But in most cases, two story houses on the North Shore possess at least 2000 sqft of living space, including 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms. From these intangibles, much can be done to modernize the home for family life today. We’ve discussed extensively what types of projects you should consider, and which you most likely should not consider in previous articles. Those deal with the primary motivation of maximizing sales value of the property. If you motivation is speed, however, you want to reduce the amount of time your improvements take while at the same time ensuring that your property meets one of the “non-negotiables” of buyers: that the property be suitable for living in quickly.
While this type of buyer might have their own schemes for renovating the kitchen and bathrooms eventually, as long as they can make it work in the interim, it can be considered by them. What they can’t make work, however, is the discoloured carpet in the bedrooms, moldy bathroom ceilings, that 70’s era chandelier in the dining room, or a rotted out back deck.
What could help is to go around the property and identify 5 areas that you think need updating most. Even better would be to ask the honest opinion of a friend to do it with you. Or better yet, have Curb Appeal Property Experts give you an honest assessment. These 5 areas will most likely be the same things noticed by buyers at an eventual open house. By addressing them in advance, you retain their possible interest and the chance they put in an acceptable offer for quick possession.
Tip #4: Engage With a Professional Realtor
When trying to sell the property quickly on the North Shore, having an experienced and professional realtor that specializes in that housing type and location is imperative. It’s nice that your cousin’s friend’s son-in-law just got their license and is eager to help you. But if they are based in Surrey and have worked mostly in condo presales, they will struggle to represent your best interests.
A realtor that knows the ins and outs of homes in your area specifically comes armed with the informational advantage you need to ensure your property is priced correctly for your motivation of a quick sale and also the ability to get your property the market visibility it needs to sell fast.
Tip #5: Opt For Staging and Professional Photography
Most realtors will offer staging as an add-on service that they can arrange at your cost. It’s often overlooked as something gimmicky, but the results of surveys done by realtors associations show that staging the home has a positive effect on both the selling value of the home and a reduction in the time it takes to sell the property. The staging should, of course, be tasteful toward as broad an audience possible and is best done by professionals.
The reason for why staging works? From a psychological perspective, it helps buyers visualize themselves in the property and feeling at home.
Photography is also something that is important to ensure is done professionally. No, just because cell phone cameras are of greatly improved quality doesn’t mean they should suffice. Besides, when talking about North Shore homes that are oftentimes priced close to $2 Million or more, it’s also expected that not only professional photography is included in the listing, but virtual tours, video tours and sometimes even drone footage is also available.
Doing the photography correctly increases the traffic through the home during open houses and encourages “fence sitters” to take a look, give it a chance, and an opportunity for them to fall in love with the property for a reason they hadn’t thought of when they were scrolling.
Tip #6: Money Talks
Naturally, we’d be remiss not to mention price as the holy grail of motivating factors for buyers. If moving the property quickly is key, then there is always a price at which you will find a buyer today. You might not like that price, or even be able to accept it – if, for example, you need a certain sale price to use the equity toward a down payment on your new property. But keeping the price reasonable, or even just below what is considered market value could be a good strategy in a down or sideways market.
Properties priced below assessed value or what most consider market value at that time, will lead to greater interest in the home and the potential for a competitive bidding that results in a higher price than you may have obtained otherwise.
As always talk to your realtor about the merits of pursuing this strategy or others, and contact Curb Appeal Property Experts to get an assessment on what improvements can be made in advance to improve your chances of selling your property quickly for the best value possible.