Selling a home can be a daunting task, but with the right strategies, you can ensure a smooth and speedy sale. However, selling your home fast does not mean that you need to sell it below market value. If you’re looking to sell your home quickly in Charlotte, North Carolina, then you are in the right place at the right time. Here are 11 Tips to Selling Your Home Fast in Charlotte, NC. Charlotte is a city with a booming real estate market thanks to a large number of people moving here each year and its thriving economy. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through the steps you need to take to sell your home fast in Charlotte, from preparing your home for sale to navigating the local real estate market.
Tip 1: Prepare Your Home for Sale
First impressions matter when selling a home, so it’s essential to make sure your property looks its best before putting it on the market. Start by decluttering and depersonalizing your home to make it more appealing to potential buyers. Maximize light & space so that your home looks as spacious and bright as possible.
Next, tackle any necessary repairs or updates to improve the interior aesthetics. This might include painting walls, updating fixtures, or replacing outdated appliances. Investing in minor upgrades can make a big difference in how quickly your home sells and the price you ultimately receive.
Tip 2: Boost Your Curb Appeal
Curb appeal is important because it creates the first impression for a buyer coming to see your house or even when they look at pictures of the home online. Add fresh pine needles or mulch in your natural areas. Trim bushes and tree limbs if they inhibit sightlines. Add some flowers in your natural areas or in pots. Powerwash the exterior and wash windows if needed. If your home has not been painted recently or if there is rotten trim or siding, now is the time to take care of these issues. You will more than get your money back from these investments.
Tip 3: Consider Hiring a Professional Stager
Professional home stagers offer a variety of services such as consulting on the things you should do for decluttering and how to use your existing furnishings most effectively from a staging perspective. For homes that are vacant or ones where the furniture is not in keeping with what today’s buyers want to own, it can involve renting furniture from the staging company to partially or fully furnish the home. We know that homes which are fully furnished by a staging company sell faster and obtain 5-10% more in their sales price. This can more than offset the cost which typically runs from $3,000-$6,000 depending on the size of the home to fully stage it.
Tip 4: Fix Other Deferred Maintenance
If you have not had a crawl space professional look at your crawl space in a while, then this is important. In the Charlotte area, it is common for a crawlspace to have high moisture levels due to the higher humidity that we have here. Higher moisture levels can lead to termites, fungus, mold, or even dry rot to the structure under your house. Even if you have installed a vapor barrier, french drains and/or a sump pump, the crawlspace should be checked yearly to ensure that the moisture level is within the appropriate range. The last thing that you want is for a buyer to have this space inspected only to find termites, fungus or mold, then cancel their purchase contract.
Tip 5: Hire a Competent, Experienced Agent
This is not the time to hire your friend simply because you like them. Your agent should be someone who works in the real estate business full time. They should have a track record of success, and they should be able to show you that they have sold a number of homes in your price range AND in your area. I am amazed sometimes when I see a seller who hired an agent who is based an hour away from the seller’s home, or the home’s price is $1.5 million, and the agent has never sold a home greater than $400,000. A knowledgeable agent keeps up with the local market. They know what buyers are looking for. And they know what the current supply and demand in the local market is. They will know how to price your home competitively and effectively market your property to the right buyers. They can also provide valuable advice to help you make the best decisions possible during the process.
Tip 6: Get Professional Photographs
Getting professional photographs of your home is incredibly important. Because the photographs shown of your home online are the curb appeal of the 21st Century, they can be the determining factor as to whether a prospective buyer decides to see your home in person. There are many real estate agents who shoot their own photos to save money. A good agent will pay for these photos themself. If the agent that you are considering says that they are planning to take their own photos, then hire another agent.
Tip 7: Set the Right Price
If you do nothing else, you must set a listing price that is reflective of the home’s size, condition, features, any negative issues, and location. It is better to set a price that is below market value than above market. Sellers sometimes think that setting an above market price is okay since they can always negotiate down. But this just turns away most buyers who will not make a realistic offer. Numerous studies have shown that homes which are overpriced take longer to sell and generally sell for a price lower than what the sale price would have been had the initial list price been appropriate. The beauty of the current seller’s market where we have more buyers than sellers is that if you price the home lower than market value, then buyers will recognize this and bid the price up - oftentimes to a value greater than the most likely sales price would have otherwise been.
Tip 8: Pick the Right Time to Sell
With the inventory of homes for sale being so low right now, there are no bad times to list a house. However, there are better times where you are likely to get more buyers looking. The Spring is still the time of year where the largest number of buyers are looking for a home. However, it is also the time of the year when there are the most homes for sale which means that you will likely have more competition from a sales standpoint.
The Fall is also a good time as there are still a number of buyers looking - just not as many as in the Spring, but there are also fewer homes on the market in the Fall. Another good time is mid to late January. I call this the early spring market. You will have very little competition during this time. and around Martin Luther King Day, many companies announce their bonuses. While they may not be paid out until March or April, many buyers will start shopping for a home. You can get a jump on the competition by getting your house on the market before them.
The Summer used to be a time when you never wanted to put your house on the market if you could help it. This is because many people obviously take vacation in the summer thus they may put their home search on hold. However, this was more likely in the past. Today, there are buyers who do not find the home that they want in the Spring, thus they are still shopping in the Summer. However, activity is lower and it may take a little longer to sell your home during this time. This is also true for the period between Thanksgiving - mid January.
Tip 9: Market Your Home Effectively
To sell your home fast in Charlotte, you need to maximize its exposure to potential buyers. Work with your real estate agent to develop a comprehensive marketing plan that includes professional photography, virtual tours, and listing your home on popular real estate websites and social media platforms. Other than MLS and Zillow, the 2nd best real estate website is now Homes.com. It recently surpassed Trulia and Realtor.com in the number of site visits. Ask your agent if they are a Homes.com Preferred Member. This will get you greater exposure compared to competing homes on the website. And Homes.com will place pay-per-click ads for your home on other top websites. We recently became a Homes.com Preferred Member to offer more marketing value to our seller clients.
Also consider allowing your agent to host open houses. Since your agent should know your home well, he or she can highlight the unique features and amenities of your property which can help it stand out in a competitive market.
Tip 10: Be Flexible With Showings
It can be inconvenient to allow people to come see your home, since you should be gone during showings. But being flexible is important. Allow for your home to be shown as much as possible during the day. We recommend from 9:00AM - 7:00PM unless you have small children. In that case, we can block out time for their naps as well as end showings a little earlier to accommodate their bedtime. Keeping your home clean at all times will make it easier to allow for showings at a moment’s notice. However, we generally require agents to give at least 2 hours notice to our clients so that they do not have to rush out of the house.
Tip 11: Offer Incentives
Consider offering incentives to motivate buyers, such as covering closing costs or including furniture or appliances in the sale. As of July 1, 2024, you should also consider including the payment of the buyer’s agent in the sale price. This is due to the recent settlement by the National Association of Realtors which, if approved by the court, removes the requirement that sellers must pay the buyer’s agent fee if the home is listed in their local MLS. However, offering to do so could make your home more competitive, since the buyer does not need to pay this expense in addition to the purchase price of the home, their closing costs, and their mortgage down payment.
Quick Sale Case Studies
Case 1: We recently sold a home in a desirable neighborhood that was “move-in ready.” The kitchen and bathrooms had been renovated recently, the walls were a neutral color and as were the furnishings, and the home had been significantly decluttered. We priced the home at $1,625,000 knowing that it could possibly sell for a little more. So we did that with the intention of getting multiple offers in hopes of the house selling for significantly more money. The strategy worked. We had a tremendous number of showings over the weekend that we launched the listing, and the home ultimately sold for $1,800,000.
Case 2: We listed a home recently for $1,200,000 in a neighborhood where most homes get multiple offers. The interior had not been updated in at least 30 years even though it was in good shape. The exterior style was something that a lot of buyers do not like. And I knew that the price was the top of what we could get, but this was the least for which the seller was willing to list the home. After 1 week of very few showings, I advised the seller to lower the list price. In this market, you know quickly that the price is too high if you have not received an offer by then. We lowered it to $1,150,000. We lowered it again in about 40 days since we had not had any offers close to this price. Shortly after doing so, we got two offers with one of them being $1 million. And that is ultimately what the home sold for. Had we listed it for less money initially, I think that we would have gotten at least another $50,000 - $75,000, and the seller would have sold the home more quickly.
Conclusion
Selling your home quickly in Charlotte requires a thoughtful approach followed by preparation and execution. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can increase your chances of selling your home fast and for the best possible price. If you hire the right real estate agent, they can help you execute these steps as outlined above. With the right approach, you can sell your home in Charlotte quickly for the most money possible then move on to that next chapter of your life.
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