Selling Your House? 2 People You Need To Hire

Do you need to sell your home in a hurry for a decent price? Although you might be tempted to snap a few pictures and slap your listing online, making the wrong decisions could impact your ability to sell. Here are two people you should hire, and how they can improve your opportunity for success:

1: A Professional Home Stager

You might adore your black and white chevron rug and that family picture gallery, but you never know how potential buyers will feel about it. Buyers have a tendency to imagine themselves inside of the space, which could mean that your ultra-personalized touch could make someone think twice. After all, who wants to feel like they are living in someone else's home?

Fortunately, you can hire professional home stagers to make your place more appealing to buyers. In addition to de-cluttering your space and rearranging your existing home decor, stagers might switch out your furniture or brighten your place up with a few pops of color. For example, a professional stager might decide to remove your oversized couch and replace it with a few bright armchairs to make your living room seem larger and more modern. 

Some sellers decide to stage their homes for real estate listing pictures, or for the entire open house. Although it might seem like an opulent idea, home staging can pay off when your house actually sells. In fact, although home staging costs an average of between $1,800 and $5,000, staged homes spend half the time on the market and tend to sell for about 6% more than the asking price. To put that number into perspective, if you listed your home for $300,000, staging your place might raise the sales price to $318,000—a profit that would make your staging expense relatively insignificant. 

2: A Real Estate Lawyer

Unless you study real estate contracts in your free time, selling your house can be stressful and all consuming. By the time you make it to your closing date, you might find yourself signing blindly just to move things along. However, you can avoid the frustrations involved with selling your place by working with a real estate lawyer. Here are a few services these professionals offer, and why they are worth every penny:

• Negotiations: What will you do if there is a lien on your property or if the seller requests unique sales terms? Real estate lawyers can take care of complicated negotiations and clarify mortgage conditions, so that you don't lose sleep over the sale of your home.
• Explain Contracts: In addition to being long, intimidating documents, sales contracts can also be written in difficult-to-understand legalese. Fortunately, real estate attorneys are familiar with the jargon, so they can explain what you are really signing.
• Analyze Financial Aspects: Your real estate lawyer can also analyze the financial aspects of your real estate deal, including taxes, title expenses, utility costs, and escrow amounts. Since legal professionals have experience with prior deals, they can spot strange terms and have them changed, so that you don't have to pay for problems later. 
• Attend Closing: Home closings can be stressful, especially if you are dealing with a picky title company. For example, some title companies might ask you to sign an entire second set of documents if you initial someplace instead of writing your name. Simple mistakes could delay when your home transaction funds and records, which could disrupt your moving timeline. Fortunately, your real estate lawyer can tag along and oversee the paperwork, so that the documents are correct the first time around. 

Believe it or not, working with a real estate lawyer is incredibly affordable—costing an average of $500 to $1,500 for help with the entire sales process. Also, since the real estate lawyer works on your behalf, you can rest assured that they have your best interests at heart.

By staging your home and protecting yourself with the help of a real estate lawyer, you can kick back, relax, and let someone else worry about the details.