Although selling a house seems like your best option, a lot of costs come with selling a house. Now, we know it all doesn’t make sense; make sense of the cost of selling a house by reading this post.
Contrary to what you think, listing your home isn’t free. A lot of costs, chores, and works goes into making your home fit for the best market available. You can’t just decide to sell your house without counting the cost, time, energy and money you’d spend to sell at a good rate. Unless you already have a direct buyer with a great offer that rids you off the hassle and out of pocket costs of listing. It is really costly to sell a house; let’s examine what it REALLY costs to sell your home in San Antonio.
Commissions, Staging & Yard Work, Oh My!
Cleaning
The First thing that precedes all other processes for preparing your house for the market is cleaning. By cleaning, we mean thorough cleaning from top to bottom. This cleaning cuts across windows, grout, tiles, baseboards, molding, sills, ceiling fans, and all obscure areas. Homeowners with pets must clean pet areas, and watch out for pet hairs and odors. You may be unable to undertake this cleaning effectively like professionals would so, outsource the job to cleaning agencies/professionals. The more reason why you need the house cleaned is in anticipation of planned and surprised visits from people who want to check out the house. You do not want prospective buyers to meet your house dirty, and unattractive.
Landscaping
Away from the interior cleaning of your house, you need to focus on the exterior cleaning of your hands. We like to call the exterior cleaning, and care of your house landscaping. You will want to make sure your yard had excellent curb appeal and isn’t overgrown or filled with weeds. Your exterior cleaning must include all of these activities:
- Trim back trees and bushes.
- Weed the lawn and open areas.
- Plant flowers and appropriate plants.
- Fix anything in need of repair.
- Add fresh paint to outdoor trim, mailbox, door, etc.
- Add seating and other elements of staging to make the outside areas more welcoming
The backyard should be warm, inviting and well manicured. The front yard is your first impression, make it a good one!
Home Inspections
Undertake a pre-sale inspection with a state licensed home inspector. This would help you eliminate sudden surprises because the inspector will identify all the items that will come up when a buyer has your home inspected after you are under contract. Aside fishing out items a buyer will bring up it helps you know how to price your home in the market. You also get to make fixes that would have made your house underpriced before you put it up for sale.
Home Repairs
Irrespective of whether your home has been well mainted or not, you’d need to make repairs to increase the appeal of your house. The expense only becomes higher when your house has been poorly maintained over the years. Some of the most common fixes relate to kitchens and bathrooms, refinished hardwood floors, and lighting. It can even include painting and wallpaper removal.
Staging
Staging is a way of increase attraction to a property you have listed out for sale by creating visualization of what it would look like to live in the house. This would always require the service of a staging professional who arranges for furniture, and other house items to increase the appeal of your home. The end of staging, is to create better visualization of what people can make of a house for sale. It would impossible to help your potential buyers visualization if all he/she sees is a blank space.
Storage & Moving
It is always best for you to move all your things from a house you have put up for sale. It sends a wrong signal to your buyer if you still have your things around and claim to sell the house. They may think your emotional attachment to your property may create issues for them in the future. Find a a storage, and move your things into the storage. We can’t help but make you realize you now have two utility bills (a mortgage and the cost for renting a store or temporary sales.
After storage comes the concern of moving. In the event that you have sold out your house successfully, you’d need to start considering the cost of moving your things. Would you be packing all by yourself or you’d need trucks and professional services? Think and budget the cost!
Commissions
We have settled the fact that selling directly takes time, energy, and many other expenses. Should you decide to sell through agents you must factor in the cost of commissions for their services. Usually the least price is 6% of the selling price, it could be more depending on the agency. To avoid being bitter, factor in the cost of the agents to the asking price. This way everyone is certified with their cuts after a successful sale.
Listing Fees, Agent Fees, Administrative Fees, and Notary Charges
Sadly, aside commissions, there may be extra charges by the agent for services like; marketing, listing, and administrative tasks such as clerical work and printing. You will face costs for notarization and other small charges that add up fast. Should you choose to sell through agents, agree on the limit of cost you expect from them, and be sure you have evaded expensive charges.