Entering the housing market and getting the value of your home can seem complicated, especially if you’re doing it for the first time. You can utilize a real estate agent to help you, but you must complete the appraisal process to understand what you can get from your home.
While you can get an appraisal and hope for the best, you’ll want to maximize your value and have a realtor recognize the value of your home. Luckily, you have a few steps you can take to make a difference and help you learn how to prep for a home appraisal.
If you follow the steps in place, you’ll boost the value of your home and maximize the results for the home appraisal. With that in mind, you should look into the steps, understand what they entail, and get the same or more money based on the comparable homes nearby.
How To Prep For a Home Appraisal
As you prepare for a home sale and seek to sell a house fast in Texas, you’ll want to focus on five crucial areas.
- Getting your home in working order
- Cleaning your house
- Making necessary home repairs
- Painting your house
- Landscaping your home
If you understand how home appraisals work, you’ll know an appraiser arrives to check various parts of your home. Even minor repairs and changes can make a difference and boost the value, helping you to get more from potential buyers.
Since a mortgage lender wants to know how much they must lend to the buyer, you’ll want to provide an estimate through a home appraisal. Doing so will make the process sooner and prove why you can ask for the value listed.
With that in mind, you’ll want to prepare for an appraiser’s visit and take advantage of tips to maximize your home appraisal.
Getting Your Home in Working Order
You’ll want to get your home in working order as you prepare for your valuation. Whether you go with cash home buyers in San Antonio or seek homeowners, you must get it in order and understand the steps associated with it to help you with the initial walk-through.
You can get it in order by remembering a few crucial points.
- Determining what you must do
- Creating a list
- Making a timeline
If you want to get your home in order, you must make the necessary changes to improve it. For example, you may need to fix the faucets or work on the gutters, so create a comprehensive list you can reference while you boost the value of a home.
Once you identify them, ensure you make a physical or digital list of the items. You can then track what you worked on, so you won’t forget anything. Doing so can help you avoid a low appraisal as you keep track of how to prepare for a home appraisal.
You won’t want to procrastinate while you work on your home, so you should tackle the steps in increments. Create a timeline of what you want to do by each date, so you’ll plan to complete everything necessary before the appraiser arrives.
Cleaning Your House
After you work on your home, you must clean your house to boost the appraisal value. When businesses like We Buy Houses Marion make offers, you’ll want a clean home to make it visually appealing and leave a good first impression on the appraiser.
Decluttering
You should start by removing the clutter from your house. Even though clutter won’t impact the property value, the appraiser may view your home as dirty, which could affect the appraisal and value in that way, so you’ll want to make it as presentable as possible.
Start by going through the living room and kitchen. You should then declutter the bedrooms, hallways, and bathrooms. Once everything feels more open and spacious, you should remove any clutter from your yard.
Cleaning the Floors
Ensure you spend time cleaning the floors and making them look suitable for the appraiser. They’ll look at the floors for any stains, blemishes, or dents, so you want to examine your floor to identify any potential problems.
For example, if you notice a stain on your carpet, you can use some carpet cleaner or stain remover to see if you can get it out. Even though it may seem small, it can significantly impact your home’s value, so you’ll want to clean and remove anything you can.
Taking Care of Common Areas
Spend time cleaning the areas where you spend the most time. For example, if you like to watch TV in your living room or lounge around in your bed, you should focus on those areas to make them look as lovely as possible.
The same applies to places where you leave items, like countertops. Don’t only pick up items, but spend time cleaning the surfaces and everything. Once you clean the common areas, you should try the lesser-used areas to make them look nice.
Making Necessary Home Repairs
You’ll also want to repair significant systems throughout your home, including HVAC, kitchen appliances, and more. Broken appliances are key things that can hurt home appraisal, so address the issues and make some home improvements.
You should check a few crucial devices if you don’t know where to start regarding your home repairs.
- Kitchen appliances
- Washer and dryer
- HVAC systems
People don’t want to worry about replacing their kitchen appliances while they refinance a mortgage, so have them in working condition. Ensure your microwave, stovetop, oven, and dishwasher work properly before you have the appraiser visit.
The same applies to your washer and dryer. If you provide a working washer and dryer for the next owner to purchase, you can add value to the home price in exchange for keeping them. However, you must prove they work properly to enjoy this benefit.
People need the HVAC system to run correctly, so check each part to ensure they work. Even if it’s the summer, you should confirm the heater works along with the air conditioner and everything else connected to the system so it gets checked off during the appraisal.
Painting Your House
Even though it seems simple, freshly painted homes are one of the things appraisers look for during the process. Since fresh paint indicates you take care of the home and the buyers won’t have to worry about it, you’ll want to add painting to your list of chores.
Some people may not recognize the importance of painting a house, but doing so can benefit you in multiple ways.
- Making your home presentable
- Leaving a positive impression on appraisers
- Cutting down on work later
Above all else, you’ll make your home more presentable to the appraiser, showing your willingness to make it as good as possible. That can then leave a positive impression on them, helping you to get a high appraisal during the process.
A fresh coat of paint also increases the home’s value. Some people want fresh paint on their homes, so it looks nice as you look into your options for painting. You can paint your home yourself or hire someone who knows how to paint while boosting home prices.
Landscaping Your Home
Speaking of home appraisals, your home’s exterior matters while improving your appraisal. You’ll want to improve you landscaping to boost your curb appeal if you want to add value on top of your square footage.
You can address a couple of common points to prepare your home for the appraisal.
- Caring for the lawn
- Tending the plants
- Adding more to the exterior
You should start by working on the lawn and improving it. Spend some time cutting the grass to make it look nice and organized while also watering it regularly. You may need to use mulch to replace some grass if you have dead patches, so look into that beforehand.
It doesn’t hurt to spend some time on your plants while you go through the process. You’ll want to care for and make them look as good as possible while also replacing flowers as needed, so look through them and see what you want to offer.
Ensure you look at the exterior to see if you can add anything of value to your home. Some may add a deck, others add stone pathways, and some even add pools. Spend some time looking into the options to see what you like and what’ll improve your bottom line.
Conclusion
As you learn how to prep for a home appraisal, you’ll understand which will make a difference with increasing your sale price. Ensure you go through all of them and see which ones you can apply, including fixing your home, cleaning, and getting upgrades and repairs.
Doing so will make a difference in your home and help you receive the market value after a home inspection. Even though it takes time for you to complete these steps and prep your home, it’ll help you get a better appraisal report and make more money.