Pricing and Preparing to Sell Your Louisville Home

The Two Most Important Factors When Selling Your Louisville Home
Price and condition are the two most important factors when preparing to sell your Louisville home. Pricing your home correctly is essential. Your Louisville realtor can provide comparative sales information detailing comparable properties in your area, or you can pay a professional appraiser to objectively evaluate the value of your property. The condition of the property is equally as critical as price. Go through the house and repair the obvious cosmetic defects that could dissuade buyers. In some cases, it may be in your best interest to lower your price and/or make a major repair, such as replacing the roof, in order to secure a buyer. It is also critical that your Louisville realtor is getting the exposure your home deserves by using good signage, advertising, and a favorable listing on the local multiple listing service. Hiring a Louisville realtor with good communication skills is essential. If you aren't getting the service you need, reach out to your realtor. If you continue to be unsatisfied with the service you are receiving, you may have to change Louisville realtors.

Best Time to Sell Your Louisville Home
Since moving in the spring or summer is often a preference of buyers, the Louisville market typically begins to heat up as early as the end of February. Buyers with children are antsy to buy so they can move during summer vacation, prior to the beginning of the new school year. When children go back to school, the market slows down a bit before picking up again in the fall. November and December are commonly slower months; although, some astute Louisville home buyers look for bargains during this period. Buyers that are shopping during our slower months are typically serious buyers. Ideally, for the Louisville area real estate market, listing your home in late winter/early spring is best, if you have that luxury.

Selling a Slow Mover
If you have had your Louisville home on the market for several weeks or months in a slow market, lowering your price would be a wise first step. With your Louisville realtor, go through the house again and see if there are cosmetic defects that you previously missed and can repair. Another option could be to pull your house off the market and wait for the market to improve. If you are in a situation that you have no equity in the house and are forced to sell because of a divorce or financial hardship, you could consider a short sale or a deed-in-lieu-of- foreclosure with the assistance of your Louisville realtor, attorney, and lender. A short sale is when the sales price of a property will not satisfy the debt on the property and your Louisville realtor or attorney negotiates the difference with the lender. A deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure is when the lender agrees to take the property back without enacting foreclosure proceedings. A short sale and deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure are options you would want to investigate only if your options are limited.

Preparing Your Louisville Home
Whatever you can do to put your Louisville home's best face forward is critical if you want to get close to your list price and sell your home as quickly as possible. You will want to work on your Louisville home's curb appeal. Make sure your landscape is pristine. Mow the grass, clean up any debris and weed the garden beds, Plant a few annual flowers near the entrance or in pots close to the door. Here are some other quick fixes that don't cost a lot of money but can help you get top dollar for your home: 
- Sweep the sidewalk, prune bushes, put down some fresh mulch.
- Clean the windows inside and out. Touch up paint, make sure the paint is not chipped or flaking. If your home was built before 1978, federal law gives a buyer the right to request a lead inspection. If you think you might have some problems, do the inspection yourself beforehand and make any corrections you can. 
- Have a working doorbell. 
- Deep clean all rooms, furnishings, floors, walls and ceilings. The bathrooms and kitchen should be spotless.
- Clean and organize closets. Make sure your home appears to have plenty of storage space. If your closets are crammed, buyers may believe there isn't adequate storage space.
- Inspect the major appliances and fixtures to make sure they are in proper working order.
- Replace light bulbs where needed. 
- Repair or replace leaky faucets and frayed cords.
- Eliminate any source of bad smells, such as the kitty litter box. Lightly use air freshener or bake a batch of cookies before your open house to ensure the house smells inviting.
- Invest in fresh flowers to place throughout the house. It's a nice touch.
- Pleasant background music also helps set a desirable stage, particularly if you have whole-house speakers.

Having your home inspected and making needed repairs prior to listing your property can make the process go much more smoothly.

Your Louisville realtor can provide personal tips to make your Louisville home more appealing to buyers.