The total number of U.S. home sales plunged by more than 6 percent at the end of 2018, and there are many real estate agents who aren’t sure why. Homes sales are now at the lowest point they’ve been in three years, which is causing some concern within the real estate industry.

If you’re preparing to put your home up on the market soon, that might worry you. Homes were selling like hotcakes as recently as just a few months ago. But now, you might have to work a little bit harder to sell your house in a timely fashion.

Fortunately, there are selling tips that you can put to good use to speed up the sale of your home. Check out 7 home selling tips below that will help you to attract offers from buyers in no time.

1. Begin by Dramatically Improving Your Curb Appeal

When people pull up in front of your house for the first time, what are they going to think?

Ideally, they should say things like:

  • “That front door look amazing!”
  • “Those new windows really tie this place together!”
  • “I just love what they’ve done with the landscaping!”

You want to make a great first impression on potential buyers, and the best way to do that is by improving your curb appeal.

Stand in front of your home before you put it up on the market and be brutally honest with yourself. If the curb appeal of your home is lacking, do something to improve it dramatically right away.

That might mean replacing doors and windows. It might also mean ripping out your old landscaping and coming up with a new landscape design.

2. Paint Your Interior Walls With Neutral Colors

Do you have walls inside your home that are bright pink, electric blue, and neon green?

Even though it’s simple enough for someone to move into your home and paint the walls whatever color they want them to be, these kinds of colors can be distracting to home buyers. They might even walk right out of a house if they don’t like the colors on the walls.

If you have any crazy colors going on inside your home right now, paint over them with neutral colors. They’ll look a lot more attractive to home buyers while they’re walking through your home.

3. Stage Your Home Properly

Staging your home is arguably the most important step you can take when preparing to sell it. You want people to be able to imagine themselves living in your home when they’re walking through it, which is why staging it is essential.

You can stage your home yourself by finding ways to position the furniture so that each and every room looks carefully constructed and well thought out. This often means getting rid of some furniture so that there isn’t too much happening inside of a room at once.

You might also want to consider hiring a professional stager to help you out. They can improve the flow of your entire home and make it feel more welcoming to buyers.

4. Declutter Your Home and Remove Personal Items From It

While you’re in the process of staging your home, you should take the time to declutter it and to remove any personal items you might have lingering around.

Throw any knick-knacks that you’ve accumulated over the years into a box and stuff it in the basement. Take down the family photographs that you have hanging all over the place and put them in the attic.

By doing these things, you’ll make your home look bigger. You’ll also depersonalize it so that people are able to envision themselves living in the home without photos of your family staring back at them.

5. Complete the Necessary Repairs Throughout Your Home

The average homeowner has a long list of home improvement projects that need to be made throughout their house at any given moment.

From the leaky pipe under your kitchen sink to the broken ceiling fan in your bedroom, you should make it a point to make as many repairs as you can before selling your home.

Home buyers are going to be walking through your home and looking for any excuse not to like it. The fewer repairs that need to be made to it, the fewer excuses they’ll have not to buy it. 

6. Keep Your House Clean During the Selling Process

When you’re trying to sell a home, you never know when you’ll get a call from your real estate agent letting you know that someone wants to come and see it. You might only have 30 minutes or so to make your home look presentable.

With that in mind, it’s a good idea to keep your house as clean as it can be at all times. Whether you live alone or have a family of eight, everyone who lives in a home that’s for sale should be responsible for cleaning up after themselves and keeping the home looking its best.

7. Make Sure You Don’t Have Any Liens on Your Property

If you happen to have a lien on your home, there’s a chance you might have trouble selling it. Therefore, it’s good to look into the possibility of any liens before selling your home.

This will prevent you from running into any potential roadblocks in the near future. You won’t have to worry about a home sale falling through as a result of a lien. You can see page after page of information on selling a home with a lien to learn how to do it.

Use These Selling Tips to Get Top Dollar For Your Home

It’s slightly harder to sell a home today than it was six months ago. But don’t let stop you from trying to do it anyway.

As long as you use the selling tips you see here, you should be able to sell your home within a matter of just a month or two. Buyers will be drawn to your home when you make a strong effort to improve the look of it.

Read our blog for tips on finding a new home once you sell your old one.