Are you looking to sell your Los Angeles or Orange County house, and looking to get top dollar? In this market, that is possible, but unless your home is already in pristine condition, staged correctly, etc. you will need to do the work in order to make it ready to sell for the price you want to get.
The following instructions apply to those who are looking to get full retail value for a house sale. However, if you don’t want to tackle these tasks, or you don’t have the time or money to get everything done, you can still sell your Los Angeles house fast for a fair market value (in a win-win sale) that’ll save you time and expense. Read on.
1) Clean, clean and clean. Even vacant houses get dusty and dirty, so keep it up! Nothing short of gleaming perfection will impress buyers. If you’re not a total clean freak, hire someone who is to help you out until you sell. Keeping everything immaculate really helps buyers feel comfortable in your space. Nothing stops people faster from buying faster than feeling grossed out.
2) Cultivate a cohesive, neutral style. You don’t have to paint everything off-white. In fact, some subtle colors can really help change the perception of spaces. For example, a soft yellow will help brighten up a dark kitchen, while a deep dark blue or green will help a bright bedroom to feel like a calm place to sleep. But be careful, dark colors will also make rooms feel small.
Spend the money to get high-quality paint and professional help. Subconsciously people will pay more money for a property with just the right colors and very neat lines. This makes the home feel better built, even though it’s just paint.
Optical illusions are real, and psychologists study this stuff. Look it up. Don’t neglect the outside and just do the inside, or anything else that’s unbalanced.
3) Fix or replace anything that’s broken. It might feel like a waste of money to spend an extra couple hundred bucks on a dishwasher that someone else might just pull out and replace again. But really, quite a few buyers will get a home inspection and use the opportunity to negotiate with you. As the seller, you’ll often end up paying more if you try to hide neglected maintenance from the purchaser – and of course you don’t want to be guilty of fraud.
Also to make sure you stay in compliance with all the laws. It’s often a good use of money to hire a home inspector to come through before you put the property on the market. If you ask in advance, they’ll often charge you a tiny rate to come back after you’ve done a bunch of minor repairs and deliver you a clean bill of health. Prospective buyers love to see an independent report on the condition of the house, it makes them feel very comfortable with the purchase.
4) Make only necessary improvements. The biggest mistake people make when getting their house ready to sell is over-improving. They often spend too much money on customized frills that can’t be recovered in the sale.
Paint is about the only safe investment. It’s easy to overspend on almost everything else, and it’s easy to get ripped off by unscrupulous contractors. It’s also important to know what improvements will produce a return on investment to avoid wasting money.
5) Get expert opinions. You should definitely find at least a few decent real estate brokers who will help you price your property, but be honest with them. If you’re going to market the property on your own, don’t make enemies by lying about your intentions. Great brokers are rare, but they make more money for their clients than they earn.
6) Have a really great marketing plan. Again, great brokers earn their value by doing this work and spreading the advertising expenses across many clients. It’s pretty expensive and time-consuming to start from scratch on your own, but if you’re already a marketing expert you’re ahead of the pack. If you’re not, spend the time listening to what the best brokers do to sell houses in Los Angeles and just to educate yourself on the options.
7) Get a cash offer. We buy houses all over the Los Angeles area, and we will do all the work so you don’t have to deal with any of this stuff.
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Don’t want to do all the things above in order to sell the house with an agent or by yourself?
Do you want to sell your Los Angeles CA house fast?
While everyone wants to get as much as they possibly can from their house sale, not everyone can do the things or will want to do the things required to sell a house at full retail value to an end buyer. Doing the repairs, cleaning the property up, upgrading the property, marketing the property… all those things all take money and can take lots of time.
If you have the funds to do these things AND you can wait for the best/right offer to come in, then you’ll be better off (financially) to do those things you need to do to get the property ready to list it on the MLS (the main property listing service that real estate agents use).
If you don’t have the funds to do these things, AND can’t wait long to sell your house, then you may be a perfect fit for our local Los Angeles house buying service.
All you need to do is submit basic info about your house here on our website or call us at 310-928-9688 and we’ll make an appointment to come to evaluate your house. Upon walking your property, we’ll make you a fair all-cash offer on your house, and then you can decide if our offer is a fit for you.
If you choose to move forward with our offer, we can also close FAST (often times within 7 days) if you need us to. So if you’re still asking yourself: “What do I need to do to sell my house in Los Angeles,” You now have 2 solid options:
- Fix the property up and get it all nice and ready with the steps above to sell it at top dollar
- Let us do all of the work and we’ll make you a cash offer on your house in AS-IS condition. This saves you time, money, and gets the hassle off of your hands.
If you’d like to sell your house, fast and for cash, give us a call anytime at (310) 928-9688 or fill out the form on this website today! >>
