You want to sell your house pretty quickly, and you want to get the best price possible. These aren’t unreasonable or unattainable goals. It just takes a little sprucing up, a little common sense, a little strategic pricing, and one other key ingredient. Here, are 5 tips to get the best price in Columbia.
1. Spruce Up Kitchen and Bath
You don’t have to do any costly major remodeling – just a little judicious refurbishing and updating. And it only needs to be in the high-use areas, namely, the kitchen and bathroom(s).
Prospective buyers will be certain to carefully check out the kitchen and bath, so whatever you do to improve those areas will likely have the most impact on your sale price. In the kitchen you could, for example, install new appliances to give the kitchen a newer, more modern look. In the bathroom, you could install new fittings for the sink and tub/shower and maybe install a new vanity. None of this is terribly expensive, and it can have a huge impact.
2. Kill the Bugs
Just one cockroach can kill a sale or drive the price way down. Now, this isn’t to impugn your housekeeping. If, however, your near neighbors have roaches and they’ve recently sprayed, then those roaches will move on to the next house – maybe yours. So calling the exterminator ahead of time will more than pay for itself.
3. Price for Bid Appeal
Strategic pricing is extremely important to get the best price in Columbia. And there’s a lot more to it than just being in line with market value.
The first tactic of strategic pricing is pricing at the lower end of the home’s value range in order to encourage multiple offers and bidding competition. Pricing in the lower range will excite more interest among more buyers to put in an offer quickly to take advantage of the good price. And then with more buyers bidding, the price is driven up.
4. Price for Real Estate Searches
This is another aspect of strategic pricing to get the best price in Columbia. It involves ensuring that your price falls within buyers’ search parameters.
Most buyers will describe to their agent what they’re looking for in general terms – for example, three bedrooms, two baths, large backyard. They will also usually indicate a preferred price range, say, between $100,000 and $150,000. So if you’re aiming at that market, you want to make sure you price within the specified range so that your home shows up in online searches. If, for example, you set your price at $155,000, that wouldn’t be within the search parameters, and you’d miss out on those potential buyers.
5. Use Qualified Local Agents
Generally, the advice is to use a real estate agent if you want to get the best price in Columbia. But you don’t want to use just any agent because a local agent can usually help you get better results. A local agent can help you with optimum pricing because she may know about sales in the area/neighborhood that are in progress, but not yet on public record.
Just make sure to research your agent beforehand. Check her sales track record carefully, especially examining whether the homes sold for more or less than the initial asking price.
These 5 tips are some good first steps to get the best price in Columbia. But there’s still more you can do to increase your chances of getting the best price possible for your house and getting it sooner rather than later.