Selling your condo can be a surprisingly time-consuming and emotionally draining task especially if you’ve never done it before. Having a plan from the start and working with an experienced professional can help you avoid mistakes and sell your condo quickly and for top dollar in this article, I’m going to give you my top 8 tips for selling your downtown Vancouver condo.
Contact Your Local Real Estate Agent
First thing you want to do is contact your local real estate agent and ask them what properties have sold in the last six months. This will give you an idea of the current market value of your condo. Generally you’re going to want to use properties that are in that immediate community or in that immediate complex and if for whatever reason nothing has sold in the last six months, you don’t really want to go back any further than six or seven months and if nothing’s sold during that period of time, then go to the next closest complex or community to you. At that point in time you’re going to make sure you don’t want to use properties that are too large or too small. Make sure they are similar in square footage; say twenty percent.
List Your Condo
When you are selling a condo, typically you are going to list it on the MLS right MLS stands for Multiple Listing Service and usually when a real estate agent adds a property to their local MLS system it then usually shows up on other website such as Trulia, Zillow, Google or the likes. Statistics have shown that most home buyers, more than 90 percent find their home online, so the listing that which the customer sees before they decide whether or not to go look at the property or to have their agent go look at the property that listing is pretty important isn’t it and so for most people they understand the value of that. So you have to have the features that make the property look nice and desirable.
Do a Thorough Cleaning
You need to clean your condo and clean it very well when you’re staging it for sale, it needs to be spotless from top to bottom. Even the slightest amount of dirt or dust can be a major turnoff for potential buyers. When you’re showing your home I’d like to say that nine-tenths of staging is actually just removal. Most people live with far too much stuff and when it comes to selling your home versus living in your home you want to declutter and remove as much as you possibly can.
Differentiate Yourself
It is not uncommon for there to be several condos on the market not just in the same area as you but also in the same building so you really have to draw attention to your special features to draw that buyer in to see your unit as special. Things that count are in a top floor unit, penthouse unit, corner units, or maybe a big balcony, special upgrades or anything to set yourself apart from the cookie cutter units out there.
Get a Pre-Inspection
A pre inspection is something that you will pay for upfront as a seller but it gives the buyer reassurance of what the condition of the property is. Buyers are very jittery by nature already so if you can alleviate any type of anxiety from them that’ll help them pull the trigger and write an offer on your condo.
Background on the HOA
Now if the background on the HOA isn’t good, you can have a lot of problems so if you can provide the fact that your HOA is healthy to a buyer that will make them feel more comfortable living in your condo. They want to hear that you have good cash reserves, no litigation and a high owner occupancy rate.
Lighting
If your condo doesn’t have enough lighting it can dramatically change how a potential buyer feels about your property especially on evening showings and on overcast days. A good rule of thumb I like to go by is make sure every room has at least two different types of lighting, for example you want to have an overhead light as well as a table light or a floor light in every room. It’s important to deeply personalize your condo when you’re staging it for sale, you want to make buyers feel like this is a place where they can be at home right away. More details here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-terzis/4-tips-for-surviving-cond_b_10038152.html
Remove Personal Photos or Collectibles
So if you have a lot of personal photos or collectibles you want to try to remove most of them before you get your condo ready for sale. Each room or area of your condo should have a very clearly defined function, so you want to use furniture accessories and lighting to make it very obvious to potential buyers how they could use each space.
Those are my top 8 tips on how to sell your downtown Vancouver condo, I wish you good luck with selling your unit.