9 Year Mortgage Hints on How to Sell Your Home Faster

It isn’t new news to any of us that the housing market is currently not the best, nor do we have any promising information that is leading us to believe it will make a fast recovery. As always, regardless of the US economic or housing situation, our lives continue to go on and moving may become a necessity for a lot of us. For this reason, 9 Year Mortgage has created a “must-do” list if you are hoping to sell your humble abode for its market value, or more.

For some, selling their home seems like a nearly impossible and never ending task, while others sell with ease.  The question of “Why?” arises when your neighbor’s home sells in a couple months, while yours has been on the market for over a year. The answer may be as simple as curb appeal or how the home was decorated or “staged”.  9 Year Mortgage suggests that if you think you are ready to put your house on the market, pause and take your time to make it appealing to those who are looking to purchase it.  The following is a 9 Year Mortgage guide to selling a home.

The 9 Year Mortgage Guide to Selling Your Home

Step 1: Disassociate Yourself With Your Home – You must let go of your emotions and realize and accept that this house will no longer be yours. Recognize that your home is where you make it, not the house; a house is just a product, much like a candy bar in a grocery store. If moving to another house seems nearly unfathomable, 9 Year Mortgage suggests that you take the time to go through each room, study it, then say good-bye. This will help allow you to look to the future with comfort.

Step 2: De-personalize – You must start to think of the house as someone else’s. To do so, 9 Year Mortgage encourages you to take down all personal items: photos, souvenirs, religious items, alcohol, or anything that may not appeal to others. The point in doing this is to allow potential home buyers to imagine their own photos and items in the house, not yours. You never want a buyer to think to themselves “I wonder what kind of people live in this home?” Instead, you want buyers to think “I can see myself living here.”

Step 3: De-Clutter – Before you even start this task, 9 Year Mortgage proposes that you rent a storage unit. Nearly every home shows better with less furniture; a home seems bigger when there is less clutter or items blocking potential walk ways. It may be wise to empty rooms completely, putting everything in storage and only adding back in a few items that will allow buyers to recognize what the room is used for.  Rule of thumb is to only leave out a maximum of one appliances on the counter top and to remove any extra leaves in dining room tables. The less there is in a room to distract the buyer, the better. Basics only.

Step 4: Remove and Replace Favorite Items – When you de-personalized the rest of the house did you forget to take down your great-grandmothers crystal chandelier or your favorite pieces of artwork? Do it now! If a buyer comes into your house and see’s items like these, they too may fall in love with them and will demand to have them with the purchase of the house, or else they’ll look elsewhere. Do not let your beloved artwork and lighting be the make it or break it portion of selling your home; instead, replace those items with generic paintings or light fixtures. This will allow the buyers to see what they potentially could get with the purchase of the house.

Step 5: Make Minor Repairs – Do not neglect repairing or replacing anything that may be broken, worn, outdated, or needs attention. A potential home-buyer who notices these minor hiccups may believe that you did not take care of the property, which may lead them to wonder about what else is wrong with the house. 9 Year Mortgage strongly advises that you do not let this fatal error of thinking the new home owners can fix it cost you selling your home. A buyer may also deduct what they think it will cost them to do the repairs from their offer. The following is a list that you should most definitely check, but it is not limited to:

• Replace cracked floor or counter tiles
• Replace burned out light bulbs
• Fix doors and drawers that do not close properly or jam
• Fix leaky faucets
• Patch holes in the wall
• Repaint any walls with a lot of pin holes and the dreaded children rooms or bathrooms that are painted in bright colors (Neutral and earth tone colors tend to soothe and relax buyers).
• Replace worn out bed spreads or couch covers that will still be in the home as buyers walk through

Step 6: Rearrange Bedroom Closets and Kitchen Cabinets – More often than not, buyers snoop through kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom closets, cupboards, pantries, and drawers. If a buyer opens a kitchen cupboard and spices fall out, it leads the buyer to think that there is not enough space, even for your spices! In order to allow a buyer to believe that there is plenty, if not extra, space 9 Year Mortgage suggests that you remove 3/4 of what is in your closets and 1/2 of what is in your pantries. Another helpful hint would be to alphabetize your spices, neatly stack your dishes, turn all the mug handles the same direction, line up shoes, and hang all your shirts in the same direction (with their buttons done up and strings tied). By doing these small tasks, it will lead the buyer to believe you are organized and took care of the house prior to selling it.

Step 7: Clean, Clean, and Clean Some More – Your house should sparkle when you’re through with it (and it should be kept that way until it’s sold)! Nothing turns a buyer away like a dirty, dusty house.

• Wash windows inside and out
• Pressure wash the exterior of your house and the sidewalks
• Clean out cobwebs
• Polish faucets and mirrors
• Bleach dingy grout
• Re-caulk the tub, showers, and sinks
• Wax floors
• Vacuum daily
• Clean out the refrigerator and freezer
• Dust furniture: including base boards, ceiling fan blades ,and light fixtures
• Clean out the garage
• Replace or remove worn out rugs
• Have fresh towels hanging (bathroom towels especially look nice with a ribbon tied around them)
• Most importantly- Remove all smells! Your house should never smell like cigarettes, trash, cooking, musty, and especially animals. Actually, it would be best to make it seem like there was never an animal in your house-then buyers won’t have to worry about soiled carpets and lingering surprises.

Step 8: Make the Entry Impeccable – When potential buyers are waiting to come into your house they will be spending a significant time on your front porch waiting for the door to be opened, this is your first impression. For this reason 9 Year Mortgage believes it would be a great idea to make sure the paint around the porch is in good condition, that there is nothing cluttering the entry, and even a new doorbell would be a wise investment. Once this is done, take it upon your self to scrutinize your work. Go stand on the front porch as a potential buyer: do you want to go inside the house? Once you enter the house, imagine how it would look to a new buyer. Is the entrance welcoming, with just enough enticement to make you want to look at the rest of the rooms? Does it look like nobody lives in the house?

Step 9: Most Importantly, Curb Appeal – If a buyer does not want to get out her car because she does not like the exterior of your house, you will never get her inside! Keep your lawn in impeccable condition by mowing, trimming the edges, weeding the garden, and trimming bushes. Add color to the exterior of your house by planting seasonal flowers and putting fresh mulch in garden areas. Take a look at the shutters and trim, are they fading? It’s time to pull out the ladder and paint the fading portions of your house.  One other important factor is to make sure your house number is easily readable so buyers can find your house.

• Note that curb appeal can sometimes extend further than your own home. We all know someone, whether it’s you or a friend, who has a neighbor who neglects  caring for their home. If a buyer comes down the road and sees a street full of nice homes, except your neighbor’s who refuses to cut their lawn or remove any trash from the yard- you may be in trouble. If you find yourself in this situation, there is a way to change it! 9 Year Mortgage suggests being direct and trying to approach your neighbor in a friendly, low-key manner saying something like this “We’re going to be putting our house on the market soon, and we really want it to show well. But we’re afraid people who don’t know what nice neighbors you are might be a little put off by the condition of your yard right now. It’s so hard to keep up on everything huh? We’d be more than happy to help you tidy up a bit if you’d like.” If this approach fails or is not possible because the house is a rental property, try finding the owner and telling him or her of your concern. If all else fails, try placing a formal request with your home owners association, a local government official, or a city representative. If worse comes to worse, put up a fence or tall hedge, and do what you can to make your house irresistible regardless of neighbors!

9 Year Mortgage Sums It Up

Selling your house is not just something you should decide to do on a whim. If you are serious about being successful in your efforts to sell, remember to take the time to make your house look its possible best. As 9 Year Mortgage has mentioned, de-personalize your home to make it look like neutral territory, not a family photo album. De-clutter the house to make it look bigger and to allow the buyer to envision themselves living there. Don’t allow your family heirlooms to stay in the home while it’s on the market, it may be the deal breaker for the buyer. Why wait and let the new homeowner make minor repairs? Do them yourself and add a bit more value to the house your selling and get a bigger profit! Remember to rearrange your closets and pantries while your doing your deep cleaning, putting all unneeded items into storage. Most importantly, give potential buyers a good impression by upping your curb appeal and making the entrance grand. If multiple buyers can see themselves living in your house, it will sell in no time!

Will 9 Year Mortgage work for me?

Not everyone qualifies or will benefit from the 9 Year Mortgage program so there is no easy answer to that question.   We are very careful with who we let into the program.  We go through a qualification process to make sure we can provide you a viable financial plan that will work before we let you into the program.  Our representatives are trained to ask the right questions and gather the information necessary to quickly find out if we can help you.  If you would like to go through this process you can Click Here to begin filling out some basic information so that a 9 Year Mortgage representative can start working on your financial plan right away.

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