How to Sell Your House, with Tips and Videos by Experts

Trying to sell your home? Do you need to sell your house fast? I don’t have to tell you it’s a tough market right now. Prices are down, and the housing market is being inundated with foreclosed homes. There are home buyers out there, of course, but you’re going to have to be canny to get the edge on the competition. To attract home buyers, you'll have to use your head and sometimes think outside the traditional "selling a home" box. I’ve spoken with several realtors across the U.S. to get tips for home owners interested in selling a home. These are especially helpful if you need to learn how to sell a house fast. What I learned follows.

How Do I Attract Buyers so I Can Sell My House?

One good way to get prospective home buyers to see your home is to host an open house. Your realtor can take care of the details. Set a date and plan ahead. Go over the house with a fine-toothed comb, looking for any needed repairs. If the doors squeak, oil them. If there’s a small hole in the drywall, patch it. If there’s a leaky faucet, replace the cartridge or washer. Repair or replace any broken tiles. Make sure all the light bulbs are working. Little things can make a big difference when selling your home.

Consider repainting. For the money, paint is a good investment for a home owner who wants to sell a house. A new coat of paint can make tired walls look fresh. Stick to neutral colors for the best results. This is true for both the interior and the exterior.

Okay, if you repainted, you had to take everything off the walls, right? Leave most of it down. Have just a few prints hanging on the walls. This will make your rooms appear larger. Remove personal photographs, too. You want would-be home buyers to start picturing themselves living in the house. Also, move out any furniture you don’t absolutely need. You’re going for the “wide open spaces” here. Pack away most of your what-nots, too, along with area rugs and nonessential small cabinets and curios. If it’s in the way, send it to storage.

Do the same thing with closets and cabinets. You want them to look large and spacious, not small and crammed full of stuff. Inside the closets and cabinets shouls look neat and orderly. The potential new home owner will want to see space for his own belongings.

Wherever you have counters in your home, you want to make them appear spacious. How do you do this? Take everything off – including your coffee maker in the kitchen and your toiletries in the bathroom. If you can put away your microwave, toaster, and can opener, do so.

Before the house is shown, clean like your life depended on it! This includes windows, showers, tubs, under stuff, behind stuff, over stuff, refrigerators, the stove, the microwave, in corners, inside cabinets, light fixtures – everything! You might want to bleach any stained grout, too. It can make even clean walls look dingy. Cleanliness is super important in selling homes.

There are several steps involved in how to sell your house. The first step in selling your home is to get a Comparative Market Analysis. It should include the area in which your home is located, along with homes about the same size or type as yours that have sold in the preceding two months. This will give you an idea about the housing market in your area.

If you’re still planning on selling, hire a licensed realtor, especially if you want to how to sell a house fast. They're experts at selling homes and selling property. They know all the pitfalls and angles of selling homes and selling property, and they have access to many prospective home buyers. I’ve sold a few houses, on my own and through a realtor. I was able to sell my house quickly with the help of a realtor. Based on my own personal experiences, if I had to sell my house now, I’d use a realtor. That’s especially true if I needed to sell my house fast. They know the ins and outs of how to sell a house, and they’ll be your guide.

Sit down with a copy of the CMA and your realtor and decide on an asking price. Remember that the CMA is not an appraisal. The price you ask when selling your home should be fair and reasonable. If it’s overpriced, you’re not likely to get offers from prospective home buyers. On the other hand, you don’t want the price to be too low, either. Believe it or not, some home buyers shy away from unusually low asking prices for fear that something is wrong with the home. If you want to sell the house fast, you might want to ask just under fair market value. Would-be home buyers will think they're getting a great deal, and it might be just the thing to get them to act quickly.

Next, work on your home's curb appeal. You want it to invite people in. Stand at the road and try to see your house as others see it. Mow the grass and trim the hedges. Edge the walk. Plant flowers near the front door. Clean out the gutters. Put out fresh straw or bark. Add new house numbers and make sure they're easily visible. Selling a house is hard work!

Increasing your curb appeal is all about making your home seem inviting and attractive. Make sure your front door, doorknob, and door knocker are polished and shiny. A nice wreath on the door would also be a nice touch. If there’s room for a hanging basket or potted plant on the porch, get one – unless it makes the space seem too crowded.

While landscaping ideas and curb appeal are closely related, they’re not exactly the same thing. Landscaping refers more to the entire yard, while curb appeal might focus more on the entry, usually the front door and front porch. Of course, as has already been mentioned in the curb appeal section, your yard must be neat and trimmed. You might want to take this a step further with some landscaping ideas.

Do have bare spots where no grass is growing? Buy a bag of quick sprouting grass seed. You can find grass that’s guaranteed to grow anywhere. Some, in fact, claim to be able to grow on cement. A few weeks before you’re ready to put your home on the market, plant the grass seed and water and fertilize the new growth, along with the rest of your lawn. If you have a stubborn spot where grass absolutely will not grow, create a pine or bark island in the spot. Make the shape asymmetrical, with a shape that reflects the shape of the yard. Plant it with a small tree, shrubs, and/or blooming flowers.

Even if you already have well established shrubbery, you can dress the area up with small flowering plants. Impatiens do well under and around shrubbery because they don’t need much sun. For a striking presentation, use blocks of one or two different shades and accent these with white impatiens.

Other landscaping ideas you might want to consider include garden ornaments. These might include statues, gazing balls, ornaments, or garden totems. An outdoor swing or bench set among flowers and greenery will look very inviting to prospective buyers!

Now, think about staging your home for the big day (or days). What's involved in staging a home? It's putting the best face possible on your home. It's the finishing touches - far beyond the basic cleaning and repairs. There's an art to it, and you might want to consider hiring professional home stagers for the job. Good home stagers are masters at selling houses. There are lots of things you can do on your own, however. Check out the home staging tips and home staging ideas found below.

Just remember that staging a home is more than just making it clean and presentable. You want to make it inviting. Staging a home is more than just visuals, too. It’s also about sound, smell, and feel. When you’re selling a house, you want the prospective buyers to be in the right frame of mind and to feel perfectly comfortable in your home.

* Make your wooden cabinets and tables glow. Use orange oil or similar products. Bring out the shine in your woodwork.

* Place a large bowl of fresh fruit on the dining room table. Make sure the fruit shines.

* Use green plants to brighten rooms. If you use silk plants, make sure they're dust free. The leaves should be shiny!

* Pull furniture away from the walls and arrange pieces into small sitting areas. There should be space enough to walk around the furniture. This is an important part of staging your home.

* Adjust the lighting in rooms to make them more appealing.

* Dress up your windows with new blinds and light, airy curtains. Blinds are inexpensive but can be an important part of selling your home.

* Place a few vases of fresh flowers in strategic areas.

* Place something really interesting on the mantel to draw attention to the fireplace. As a home owner, you want to remind home buyers of this feature.

* Remove dust jackets from books in bookshelves and group books together by color. Leave small empty spaces in the bookshelves.

* Don't overlook the temperature in your home. If it's summertime, you want buyers to notice how cool the house is. If it's winter, you want them to notice that the house is warm and cozy.

* Some agents recommend playing soft music in the background - melodies with no words, just barely audible. A lot of selling a home is psychology.

* Bathrooms are often overlooked by sellers, but they're important to home buyers. Put out fancy towels. Purchase a new toilet seat. Place a small basket of fancy soaps on the counter or shelf. Make the bathroom appear attractive as well as functional to home buyers.

* Don't overlook outside living areas. If you have a deck or patio, use plants and flowers to make it look inviting. Many nurseries will allow you to rent plants. Also, set up a picnic table with a bright tablecloth, plates, tumblers, and napkins, like it's all ready for an outdoor meal. Place fresh flowers in the center of the table. Selling a home isn't just about the interior.

* Just before potential home buyers are scheduled to view the house, make it smell inviting. Use aromatherapy to your advantage when selling your home. Scents that say “home” include ginger, cinnamon, and vanilla.

Be proactive in marketing your home. Many owners selling a house or selling property use their computers. Consider putting it on the internet. Include lots of wide-angle, bright photos of your home. You might even want to consider placing a video home tour on Youtube. This is especially useful if you're interested in selling your house fast and if you want to sell your home yourself.

Remember - the more exposure your house gets with possible home buyers, the better. Just don't seem too desperate. You don't want the video to scream, "I have to sell my house fast!"

If you have a home buyer really interested in the house but isn't quite ready to commit, offer to throw in something extra - a buying bonus. Perhaps you could offer to pay closing costs or the property taxes for a year - that could certainly help you sell your house quick! If would-be home buyers fall in love with a piece of art that looks great in the house, offer to throw it in, if you can part with it. Remember - you're moving to a new place, and that objet d'art might not look so great in your new home. What about that pool table in the basement? Offer to include it in the deal. People love the idea that they're getting a "freebie."

There are agencies that buy your home quickly and buy your house for cash. With cash for homes programs and buyers, you won't get top dollar, but if you're really interested in selling a house fast, like to avoid foreclosure, this might be your best bet. Ask your local realtors about cash for homes programs, and be sure to use a lawyer for the transaction.

All your hard work will pay off in the long run. Use some of the tips here about how to sell a house, do your homework, and think outside the box. Once you make the decision to put your home on the market, create a plan and stick to it. Make a list of everything that needs to be done for selling a house, with the most important points listed first. Get the entire family in on the action. When a task is completed, check it off the list. Keep in touch with your real estate agent, and keep his phone number in a handy place. Good luck with selling a house!