Deciding to sell your house is not as easy as you might think of. It is not just about listing your home and wait for someone to contact you, have some negotiations and then seal the deal at the agreed price. It does not work that way. Buyers will think of buying a home a discount while sellers will do what they can to increase the value of their homes. For sellers, you can increase or appreciate your home’s value by doing the necessary repairs and renovations before listing it to various real estate listing sites.
First up is an article was written by Trulia about the tips for a higher home appraisal. Follow these expert tips and you’re in good hands.
Read Before You Refi: 5 Tips For A Higher Home Appraisal
Image Courtesy of Forbes.com
If you’re hoping to refinance the mortgage on your home, there’s one big roadblock between you and that lower rate: the home appraisal. If your appraisal is low, you might not be able to refinance at all, or you might be facing less-than-optimal loan terms, including potentially paying for private mortgage insurance. If your appraisal results in a higher assessment, you’ll quite likely have more loan options available to you — often with lower interest and better payments.
To start your appraisal prep, make sure your home is clean (inside and out). Appraisers are human, after all, and can be swayed by how pristine (read: well-cared-for) a home looks.
Here are five more home appraisal tips to ensure your home appraises as high as possible.
1. Make those small repairs you’ve been postponing
Your house isn’t going to morph into a mega-mansion overnight, so some of the considerations for an appraisal (such as the number of rooms, square footage, and location) aren’t negotiable. But you can make the most of your home’s features. “Make sure that all the major systems have been serviced and that everything in the home appears to be maintained and functional,” says Ingrid Vincent, a Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts real estate agent. For appraisers, the condition of a home often matters more than the year it was built. Tackle any DIY home projects that you’ve put off.
2. Enhance your home’s curb appeal
You might not pay much attention to your home’s exterior, especially if you typically enter and exit through the garage or a side door. But curb appeal matters to potential buyers, and it matters to appraisers too. The Appraisal Institute states that properly maintained landscaping can enhance a home’s value. If you’re wondering what else you can do (besides mowing the lawn) to boost curb appeal, Cassy Aoyagi, president of FormLA Landscaping in California, gives these tips for a quick landscaping fix:
Strategically place container gardens
Mulch flower beds
Wipe down existing foliage and outdoor lights
Stage patios or porches with seating and pillows
3. Create a file of all recent improvements, upgrades, and tax documents
If you spend any money on your home, save all your receipts and keep them in a filing cabinet. (Or digitize the documents and store them on your computer.) It’s also a good idea to take before-and-after photographs of any improvements and upgrades. By staying organized, you can easily prove to the appraiser what you did to improve and upgrade your home, and how much you spent. Also be sure to include documentation for any permits that were pulled as part of home improvement projects. See full post here…
The abovementioned tips are proven and tested to really improved the home’s appraised value. Enhancing the house’s curb appeal also helps a lot in the appraised value. In addition, find those areas in the house that requires repair and immediately fix them. If possible, find the cheapest cost possible in doing the repairs.
If you don’t have all the time to do the majority of the repairs, there are crucial areas in your house that are dubbed as most important. Christine Bartsch published an article in Home Light about what to fix before selling the house that you must know. Check the article below to learn more.
What to Fix Before Selling a House: The 7 Improvements That Are Absolute Must Dos
Given the expense that comes with moving to a new home, it’s not surprising that you’re reluctant to pour money into the house you’re leaving behind. After all, you’ve learned to live with the toilet handle that needs jiggling and the electrical outlet that hasn’t worked in a decade. The new buyers will just have to accept your home’s quirks.
They probably won’t. In fact, those minor (and sometimes major) repair issues you’ve tolerated can deter buyers from making an offer or even result in a low appraisal which can kill the deal.
The last thing you want is for repair issues to land your home back on the market. According to Nathan Dart, a Maryland real estate agent that ranks among the Top 1% of Realtors Nationwide, “If we’re back on the market because we have these repair issues, every other buyer that comes in to buy our property will want these issues addressed.”
Deals falling through due to repair and appraisal issues happens more often than you might think. In their December 2016 Confidence Index, the National Association of Realtors reports that 23 percent of property sales fell through due to the home inspection and environmental issues.
Another 14 percent fell through due to appraisal issues. That’s a total of 37 percent of terminated sales likely related to a repair issue that the seller could have addressed prior to listing the property. Click here to read the rest of this post…
Most of the time, people are reluctant to spend money on additional renovations or repair cost on a house they are about to sell. What they don’t know is that ignoring these repair issues would lead to a depreciation of the property. As much as possible, do that effort to check and repair the house before selling.
Laura Mueller taught beginners that ways to prepare your house for a home appraisal. There are actually effective ways to do them and Laura compiled them in her article at Moving.com
8 Ways to Prepare for a Home Appraisal
Image Source: Moving.com
When it comes to selling your home, finding a buyer is just the first step. Before you can close the deal, you need to pass two important milestones: the home inspection and the home appraisal.
A home appraisal is a report of your home’s value in the market. It’s performed by a certified, state-licensed professional, whose primary job is to objectively evaluate your home and state how much it is worth. This is the number that determines if your home is priced appropriately in consideration of its location, features, and condition, particularly in relation to prices of comparable homes in your area that have previously closed a sale.
If the appraisal comes in low, your buyer is likely to have trouble getting enough lending from the bank. If they can’t make up the difference in cash, you’ll either have to renegotiate the sale price or lose the buyer. Obviously, neither is a great scenario. Nor is it particularly uncommon: according to the most recent REALTORS Confidence Index Survey, published by the National Association of Realtors, 76% of home sales that closed in February 2018 had contract contingencies, and 44% of those were related to appraisal issues.
You’ll never have full control over what your home will appraise for, but you can take steps to increase your chance of pricing where you need to. Here are 8 good places to start.
1. Get an early appraisal
The appraisal that ultimately dictates the lending amount is paid for by the buyer and typically done around the same time as the home inspection. But if you’re worried about your home’s worth, there’s no reason you can’t hire your own appraiser to come in and note areas of concern before you even put your home on the market. An early appraisal will give you the opportunity to address anything that might put your home’s value at risk, like a structural issue or broken fixtures. Even if you don’t make any changes, it will give you an idea of how you might want to price your home.
2. Take care of quick fixes
When an appraiser is evaluating your home, they’re bound to be influenced by any signs – big or small – that a property has not been well maintained. Simple fixes, such as repairing faulty cabinets, making paint touch-ups, and finally taking care of that perpetually running toilet will show that you’ve put time and effort into your home’s condition. It’s worth spending a few hundred dollars up front to take care of easily fixable problems. Failure to do so may result in losing much more than that amount on your appraisal.
One of the most effective ways to appreciate your home’s value before selling it through fixing those parts that require repairs, do some renovations on the parts that need renovations. House repairs before selling do not have to be costly and time-consuming. Once you have finished all the necessary repairs and renovations, then you’re ready to sell your house.
If you’re done with the preparations and ready to sell your house fast, we at Dependable Homebuyers can help you find the right buyer and seal the deal. To learn more, visit us at https://www.dependablehomebuyers.com.
Dependable Homebuyers
1402 Belt St, Baltimore, MD 21230
(443) 266-6247
