Since I barely just sold my home, I wanted to share some tips about how to make your home
selling process easier and quicker.
I am Tiffany Thomas with wealthytiffany.com and I achieved financial freedom at age 38,
mainly through real estate investing, and also became a millionaire at age 40.
So if you are looking to become financially free at a young age as well,
hit that like button and hit the subscribe button and we are going to dive right in.
All right, in today's video, you will learn my 7 tips when selling your home.
The first tip, and you've probably heard of this one,
but it is to clean your home.
Make sure your home is really, really clean.
I have looked at a lot of different properties
when I was interested in purchasing a property and some of them were super filthy.
It was super disgusting and just walking in there
and looking around and thinking, aah this place is super,
super dirty. I cannot even live here. And while some people can overlook the mess,
a lot of people just can't get over that.
So make sure you are cleaning everything, and you're wiping down your countertops.
You're mopping. You are sweeping, dusting.
Anything you can think of to make your home look a little bit cleaner.
It will make it a lot easier to sell.
One of the things in particular that
I did when I was selling my property was to go into the furnace room
and wipe down the top of the furnace and the water heater.
It gets super dusty in that room and a lot of people forget about it.
But if it is clean in there, then people aren't thinking, oh
wait. How old is this home? It is super dusty.
There's a layer of dust in here. And it helps them think,
oh, they really take care of the place. They like it clean,
and it's probably not super bad and they probably
take care of the things inside of their home.
So look around your house. Dust off the ceiling fans,
dust off the light fixtures. Also, some people will open your cabinets.
So make sure nothing is going to fall out of your cabinet.
Comment below and tell me what you think
the most important thing is that you should clean in your house,
when you are getting ready to sell. I'm curious to know.
The second thing that you want to do, when you are getting ready to sell your home,
is to declutter your home.
It kind of goes along with cleaning,
but you want to make sure that there aren't a lot of knickknacks on all of your shelves
or just random items sitting everywhere near the couches.
So just take a look throughout your whole house.
Just walk through and think, okay. What can I kind of clean up?
What can I get rid of? And just box those items up if you still want to keep them
and put them in the garage, or even in the back of your car.
Just so that your house is very clean and doesn't feel crowded or cluttered.
It will make it a nicer experience for potential buyers,
walking through the home. Not to feel that they are suffocating,
or that there's too much stuff in the home. And then think,
oh, this home isn't very big.
Or even think that it's not really clean because there's just so much stuff everywhere.
And the third point is to get rid of any personal items that you might have in the home.
So just depersonalize your home.
For example, if you have family photos hanging on the wall or on your shelves,
you'll want to take those down so that people can visualize themselves living in your home.
Instead of thinking, oh, I'm walking through someone else's home.
And I did this, when I was getting ready to sell.
I had some pictures out of my nieces,
and nephews, and my friends
and I. So I took all of those photos down
and just put them in the box and put them under the stairs in the storage room.
And the fourth thing you want to do, when you are getting ready to sell your home,
is to fix any little maintenance items that you have been putting off for a while.
Maybe you have just some light bulbs that are out,
or maybe there is a faceplate
cover that goes over the plugs.
Maybe one of those has broken, or even if they are white or cream,
if they don't really match, or if there is a door handle that's loose, or blinds that are broken,
whatever it might be, just fix those little items. And for me,
there were some little marks on the walls.
For example, when my roommates had left,
they had left little white marks from pictures that were hanging up.
And so I went around and just painted those little spots.
So there wasn't a big white spot showing on the wall.
Just make sure to fix all of those items. So the potential buyer isn't thinking,
oh, I'm going to need to fix so many things in this home.
They can just think, oh, it's really clean in here.
It feels nice and there's not a lot of things wrong with it.
And point number five is to make your home feel lighter and brighter.
You'll want to open your curtains when you are showing the place,
open your blinds. And if your house is a little bit darker,
think about getting some lighter curtains,
or even just taking down the curtains if you have blinds underneath, or getting a light color
rug to put over the dark carpet.
Just do what you can to make the house feel brighter.
And also, when you are going to show the house, you can leave the lights on in the house.
That's what I did, most of the time when we had showings.
I just would turn on the lights, especially in the basement where it is
darker and they have to walk down a little dark hallway.
So I just flipped on the lights and made it feel brighter in the basement.
And in that way they weren't touching all of the light switches either.
So it just had a more welcoming feeling, and it just made the house feel brighter.
And speaking of changing out the light bulbs.
Make sure that you have all of your light bulbs working
and I would recommend going with an LED light bulb.
That is a little bit brighter, just to give that brighter feeling.
And then you could also say that your home has been updated with LED lights,
which are more efficient, and that's what I personally did.
I had most of the lights already changed to LEDs.
And number six is to have a nice curb appeal.
And what that means is when someone is pulling up to your house when they look at it,
they want to not see all of the overgrown
bushes, or lots of leaves on the porch, or just having it feel kind of dirty or grungy.
You just want it to look nice and welcoming.
Because that's the first thing they are going to see when they pull up to the house,
is the outside the curb appeal.
So the nicer that looks then the more excited
they are going to be to come into the home.
And if it is the fall time, like it was for me.
There were a lot of leaves on the walkway.
So I made sure and swept those off. And I also had a little planter with Gerber daisies,
and they were still alive luckily, or I would have gotten rid of that planter.
But I just had that placed right next to the door.
Another thing you can do, if you have a worn-out
welcome mat, you can replace that.
You just want it to feel as welcoming as possible.
And another thing I did was wash my front door.
It was pretty dirty and I had never washed it.
And when I washed it, I thought, oh, wow! Even I want to enter my house now.
It was so much cleaner. You'll want to take a look and just think, okay,
how can I make this home look nicer from the outside?
Do I need to trim back the bushes? Do I need to paint a little bit?
What is it that I can do to make it feel more welcoming?
And then point number seven. The last one is to make sure that you have really good pictures
when you are going to post them online.
And I personally used a real estate agent.
My sister is my real estate agent. She is amazing,
but she had a photographer come out
and take pictures of my home. Because when people are looking for a home to buy,
they're going to look online most of the time.
Some people may just drive through neighborhoods,
looking for the ‘for sale’ signs,
but a lot of people are going to look online
and what they are going to see is the pictures you're taking of the home.
So, you really want to make sure that you have really,
really good pictures because if the pictures don't look great,
they're not even going to come look at the home.
And make sure when you are taking those photos that everything is cleaned up
and you have your toilet seats put down.
I have seen pictures online where the toilet seat is
up and I'm thinking, why wouldn’t they put that down?
Anyway, that's just a little side note and even it bothers my sister too.
So we are on the same page that way
but just make sure everything is clean, and there is no clutter around,
and it is light. And you can even do a little video tour of the home.
And luckily, for me I was able to sell my home pretty quickly.
It is a seller's market right now, but if you can just do all of these little things,
it will make a big difference on being able to sell your home easier and quicker.
If you are curious to know how much I was able to make by selling my home.
I did create a video for you. I will leave a link above and below in the description.
You can check that out later on. And as a side note,
if you are looking to manage your money easier,
I personally like using a free app,
called Personal Capital, it hooks all of your financial accounts to it.
In that way you can see your full financial picture in one place.
If you are interested in signing
up for that, I will leave my referral link below and you can get a free twenty dollar
Amazon gift card when you hook one of your retirement accounts to a Personal Capital.
Comment below and tell me
what you think the most important thing is to do before you sell your home.
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Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you in the next video.