Selling your home can be a daunting task, but it shouldn't be. Learn how to prepare your home to list on the Utah real estate market, attract home buyers and get top dollar for your home.
So the first thing I want you to focus on is any small maintenance issues that you are aware of with your home, right? These are known as deferred maintenances. Maintenance that you've just been kind of putting off. I'm talking about little holes in the drywall, caulk around a bathtub, gutters that are clogged. So just these little deferred maintenance things that you've been putting off and you don't really notice anymore. Take care of all of these things now, because they may be insignificant and you may not even notice them anymore, but buyers absolutely will notice them. When a buyer's walking through a property and they're saying, "Well, I got to take care of that. I got to take care of that. I got to take care of that," They start getting overwhelmed and the entire perception of a house really changes pretty quickly. Even a small thing that you may have to hire a contractor for, if a contractor would charge you $100, when a buyer's walking through a property and they're trying to work out the math in their head, it may actually only cost them $100, but in reality, they always overestimate the cost of repairs.
In their mind, they're thinking, "Oh man, that's going to be 200, $300 at least to patch a small hole in the drywall." So the more of these little deferred maintenance items that you can take care of now, the better. Next, I want you to start decluttering your home. Look, we've all been there. Things just tend to accumulate pretty quickly in a home. And it can take a long time to start organizing your stuff and figuring out what you want to sell, what you want to keep, what you want to donate, but start that process now and try to eliminate as much stuff and as much clutter in your home as possible. When I walk through a home with a buyer and a house is cluttered and then I walk through another home that's exactly the same, but it's open and it's not cluttered at all, that home feels larger. It may not be larger, but it feels larger. And that's what is really important, what a home feels like to a buyer.
So I would say try to de-clutter as much as you possibly can. It's hard to over declutter. If you have a garage or an attic or storage space, start getting boxes and boxing all the little things up now. Put them away for a few months and once you move into your new home, then you can take out all those little knacks and decorations at that point. Next, I want you to try to brighten up your home as much as possible. There's nothing that'll turn a home, more unattractive than walking in and it being incredibly dark in there even with all the lights on. And again, with a buyer is about what a home feels like. So if they walk into a home and all the lights are on, but it's still incredibly dark in a room, that's a very different feeling than if they walk into a home, the windows are open and it's bright and sunny and very colorful. That buyer is going to feel two different emotions there. So find ways to make the home as bright as possible.
If you have very dark curtains, open them up or even replace them with lighter curtains. If you have a dark paint color in your home, replace it with a much lighter color that reflects the light around. If you have a dark carpet in a room, again, I would consider replacing it with a much lighter color carpet or even a light color rug on top of the carpet. This is also important when you have showings on the home. I always recommend that you leave your blinds and curtains open and let as much natural light into the home when you know you have a showing that day. It's also recommended that you leave at least one light in every room for that showing. Now, not all my clients feel comfortable doing that because of electricity costs. But if you do feel comfortable doing that, I do recommend that just to make the rooms feel much brighter.
Next, I want you to ask yourself, "When was the last time this was updated?" And I want you to ask yourself this question about your kitchen, your bathroom, your floors, your hardware, the door handles and all your electrical outlets and phase plates, because this is what buyers are going to be looking at when they come to the property, right? They're going to open up the door, and if the handle's 30 years old, you can absolutely tell. And they'll be like, "Oh man, I got to update this house." If they're walking through and all your phase plates are almond colors, and obviously from the '70s or the '80s, they're going to notice that. If they walk into a kitchen, your kitchen may be perfectly serviceable, but in their minds they're thinking, "Oh man, I got to update this kitchen. That's going to cost me 10, $15,000 to do."
Same thing with the bathrooms. I would say, if your kitchen or bathroom hasn't been updated in about 20 years, I would strongly consider investing a little bit of money in those areas and just kind bring them up to modern standards. Next, I want you to focus on your curb appeal. So this is the front of your home. When a buyer first walks up to your property, that is what they're going to see. Typically, when they see your home online, the very first image that they're going to see is the front of your house. So there's an interesting psychological concept known as confirmation bias. So when we first see a person or a house or anything, we're going to make a snap judgment decision right then and there about that based off of our very first image of them. Later on, we're more likely to accept facts that confirm our initial decision rather than accept facts that contradict our initial decision.
So how this plays out in Utah real estate is if they walk up to your house and they see, "Wow, what a cute and pretty house," then they walk in, they're more likely to look and accept the facts that confirm that that's a cute and pretty house rather than facts that contradict that that maybe this house isn't as cute and pretty on the inside. And vice versa. If they walk up to your house and the first and impression is, "Wow, look at this overgrown yard and it's ugly. And there's mildew all over the house." They're going to be like, "Oh geez, what do we have here?" They're going to notice all the little things like outdated door handles and smears and smudges and stains, all the little things that reaffirm their initial perception of your property. This is absolutely a real thing. It's called confirmation bias. And this is why focusing on your curb appeal is so important.
Now, you don't have to do anything really over the top. A lot of my sellers, they just need to focus on their landscaping a little bit, a lot of times bushes can get overgrown. You just got to trim them back a bit. Make sure your grass is cut. Possibly go by some mulch and lay some mulch down in the front of your house. Do you have any mildew or algae growing on your siding? Get a pressure washer and clean that off. If your welcome mat is 15 years old, maybe get a new welcome mat. If the door to your house hasn't been painted in 10 years, maybe give it a fresh coat of paint. Try to do whatever you can to make that initial impression of your home as pleasant as possible.
So the next step is the hardest one for many of my clients. But I want you to depersonalize your home. So when a buyer walks through the property, they need to be able to envision themselves in this home and need to be able to envision their TV and their couch and their furniture in this. And when they come in and they see all these family photos of another family living in that property, it absolutely just kind of destroys that illusion in their mind. So I'll admit it's a little awkward walking through strangers homes, right? They have all their furniture there. And when you start seeing family photos in the house and all these personalized knickknacks, I'll admit, it's even a little awkward for myself. I'm invading somebody else's personal space. You don't want to portray that feeling to any potential buyer. So I know this is hard, but I want you to take down all your family photos, all the photos in your house of you, your husband, your kids, your grandkids.
And I want you to very delicately box those up and a box and stick my way in a closet just for a few months, until you're fully moved into your new home. Once you're fully moved in, that can be one of the first boxes that you unbox, but while you're selling your home, I want you to take down all your personal family photos.
So my last tip is to start interviewing real estate agents early. Too often, sellers go with the very first real estate agent that they find or the first ad that they see, or the first recommendation that they get. And I really want you to interview multiple real estate agents, ideally two to three real estate agents before you finally choose one. Now, there's a couple areas that I want you to focus on with these real estate agents.
One is what kind of marketing are they going to do for your listing? Are they taking pictures on their cell phone? Or are they hiring a professional photographer to come in there and take some beautiful pictures? I'll be honest, unfortunately, the majority of the real estate agents out there, they don't invest anything into their listings. They take all their pictures on their cell phones and then they upload them to the MLS. And that's it. What top agents do, and what I do as well is I invest money into my listings. And what I find is by investing in marketing, the homes actually sell for more money. And because I get paid off of commission, I actually earn more money. It makes up a portion of my marketing cost. Personally, depending on how large a home is, I spend anywhere between 500 and $1000 marketing my listing.
So this is paying for stuff like professional photography, which I do on all my listings. Many of my listings get a video tour of the property. This video's uploaded to YouTube, it's uploaded directly to Zillow. So it's on your Zillow listing automatically. We also use this video in a Facebook ad, which I run to the general area of the listing. So make sure whatever real estate agent you use, are investing in marketing and they're investing in getting your home sold as well. The second area I want you to focus on with the real estate agent is communication. According to the National Association of Realtors, number one complaint about real estate agents is a lack of communication. There are some agents that they won't communicate with their clients for weeks, even months on end. Personally, what I do is I call every client that I have every single week. I call it followup Friday, and every Friday I run through every single seller client that I have. And I just give them an update.
"Hey, last week you had three showings. Here's the feedback on those showings. This home down the street just sold for you for this price. You have two new homes that just came on the market in your neighborhood." I just give them a quick update and I end every call with, "Do you have any questions for me?" So those are the two areas that you really want to look for. A lot of people say, you want to look for experience. I don't really find that to be true. I know plenty of agents that have been doing this for a long time and they're still bad agents. They still don't communicate with their clients very well. They still take pictures on their cell phones and don't invest anything in marketing. For me personally, I think the two most important things that you want to look for in a real estate agent are effective marketing and good communication.
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