PREPARING TO SELL YOUR BIG ISLAND HOME

Preparing to Sell your Home on the Big Island

Once you’ve decided to sell your home on the Big Island and you will want to do whatever you can do to help sell it fast. Selling a home is not always as easy as it sounds and sometimes homeowners have to wait for months before they can find the right buyer for their home. However, there are a few tips to help you sell that will help move things along a bit faster:

DeClutter Every Room 

Get rid of the clutter – it is unattractive. Go from room to room and remove everything that is not essential. Have a garage or yard sale, put your items in storage or donate them to charities. Prepare every room in such a way that prospective buyers can picture themselves living there. With that in mind, you still want your home to present a warm and welcoming ambience.

A Fresh Coat of Paint

Update a few of the rooms in your home by giving them a fresh coat of paint. Try to choose neutral colors as they are easier to identify with. Painting your home not only makes it look newer, it also helps to give it a higher value.  Pay close attention to the colors you choose – as the right color can sell your home faster.

Make a List of Repairs and Get them Done 

You’ll want to do the necessary repairs if you want to sell fast and for a higher value. Go to each room with pen and paper and make a list of everything that is broken. Look into electrical, plumbing and AC and if anything needs updating make sure that you make the necessary changes.  Pay attention to what you spend as you will want to make sure you get a return on investment from any remodeling you do. 

Update the Kitchen

The kitchen is the most important part of the home and it may be where you want to focus most of your upgrade dollars. Update the cabinets and the appliances and fixtures if they are outdated, spend some money to update your appliances and adding a new countertop is also a good idea. These ideas may seem like a big investment but they will add value to your home and help you sell your home faster.

Make it Feel Like Home

Real estate agents love to stage their homes with baking cookies and a fire in the fireplace. They do this for a reason – it helps the home feel lived in. On the days when you have people coming to see your home have a fire going in the hearth as well as fresh cookies and some juice ready for prospective buyers.

Yes, You Need an Agent

Lastly, it is very important to work with the right real estate agent. Choose someone who has a reputation for helping sell homes fast and who will help you with all aspects of the sale such as staging, valuation and all the paperwork that goes into the transaction. These tips for selling your home will not only decrease your time on market, but can get you a higher sales price.

Find the True Value 

Now that you’ve got your home ready to sell fast you’ll want to find out just how much it is worth. This can seem like a very complicated task – but there are certain steps that you can take to ensure that you get your home valuation correct.  Finding the true value of your home is not as easy as you think.  It’s much more complected than getting a Zestimate from a nationwide real estate site — they are generally not very accurate.  Real estate professionals have been complaining about the accuracy of the Zestimate for years.  If you want to get an idea of your home on the Big Island is worth — click here. 

Get Your Homes Accurate Value

Local Tax Assessment Office 

Your local tax assessment office can be a good source of information. They collect information about property sales and can provide you with records of recent sales in your neighborhood. Although the Tax Assessment Office is a great source of information because of they generally get all of the transactions, they generally do not have the level of detail that a local real estate agent will have.  

Local Real Estate Agent

Finding a professional, local real estate agent, that specializes in selling homes on the Big Island is  your best resource. They can help you to ensure you get the best value for your home because they work in your neighborhood and they will be familiar with all of the properties like yours so they can help you make a good estimate.

Make sure that you give them all the pertinent information – let them know the condition of your home and also whether you have made any additions that could affect the value of your home. You can also ask for a comparative analysis that compares several similar properties that are like yours helping you to come up with the best price point.

Your Insurance Company 

Your insurance company can also be helpful. They have assessors that will inspect all aspects of your property and compile a report on how much it is worth. You can bolster those findings by hiring an independent assessor of your own. Make sure you choose one who is experienced and who has knowledge of the properties in your neighborhood.

Local Papers 

Local papers are also a valuable source of information. Every day there are Big Island homes for sale that are listed with their selling price, and you can find those that are similar to yours and find out what they are selling for.  These homes ultimately become your competition.  You will want your home priced BELOW competitive properties if you want to sell quickly

Record the information that you find. Have a spreadsheet where you record the address of the properties that you have come across, the lot size, square footage, selling price, garage, add-ons and so on. In the end you will have a report comprehensive enough that you can compare with what you get from your insurance company, the assessors and your Realtor.

The most important person during this process is your real estate agent. A good agent will do their best to give you the real value of your home because their business is based off of referrals, and they want you to be ecstatic with the price you get for your home as well as the time it took to sell.