How To Sell a Condo
Even during the extreme sellers’ market of 2020-2022, listing your home has never been as simple as setting a price and waiting for offers to start rolling in. With those wild gold rush days well and truly in the past, sellers need to be savvy when prepping their homes for the market.
Despite the challenging market, this is a great time to sell a condo. High prices and interest rates have more and more house hunters expanding their search to condos and townhomes. Selling a condo, townhome, or even a house with a homeowners’ association isn’t that different from selling any other home but there are a few extra steps you should be aware of.
First Steps
Before you start refreshing your paint or making grand renovation plans, walk through your property with your realtor and make two lists: one for repairs or improvements you will be responsible for and another for repairs your HOA will be responsible for. In most homeowners’ and condo associations, homeowners are responsible for maintaining the interior of their property while the HOA is responsible for the exterior and common areas. Even if you’re selling a condo or apartment, make sure you walk around the exterior of the building and grounds. The surrounding property will be the first thing potential buyers see when they visit your home, and exterior damage to a building can easily become interior damage that the new buyer might be responsible for fixing.
Doing this walkthrough with your realtor has two benefits. First, your realtor is a fresh set of eyes. It’s easy to overlook or become accustomed to small issues in your home that might be big problems for potential buyers. Secondly, your realtor knows what improvements or repairs will have the biggest impact on the sale of your home. For example, the neon green paint in your bedroom might be easy for a new owner to fix but it could be distracting or off-putting enough to dissuade some buyers.
If you have the budget and want to be especially thorough, you may choose to hire a licensed real estate appraiser or a home inspector. A real estate appraiser will do a visual inspection of your home and give you an estimated value based on their findings and the value of homes in your neighborhood. While appraisers can be helpful, they can also be very inaccurate. Many appraisers will just drive by your property and do a cursory visual inspection of the front of the house or condo complex. Then, they’ll base their valuation on the square footage of your property and the surrounding properties, not the interior condition. This can lead to poorly maintained or laid-out properties being wildly overvalued. If you choose to hire an appraiser, take their valuation with a grain of salt.
In contrast, a home inspector won’t give you a valuation but will do a more thorough inspection and can catch problems that may have otherwise gone unnoticed until you have an accepted offer. Remedying these issues in advance will save you the stress of a lengthy list of repair requests from a buyer prior to closing.
Fix What You Can
Once you’ve done your walk-through and have your lists of repairs and improvements, it’s time to get to work. Talk with your realtor to decide which projects you want to prioritize. Your budget, timeline, and the overall impact the projects will have on your sale price will all help you determine what tasks you’ll put your energy into.
Get a few quotes for the cost to complete your repairs. If you’re particularly handy, you may choose to take on some minor projects yourself but be very honest about your skill level. If you’ve never installed laminate flooring, now is not the time to learn. A poorly executed upgrade, even one that’s just cosmetic, may leave potential buyers wondering what other more important repairs have been botched. After you’ve accepted quotes and mapped out any DIY projects you’ll be taking on, get a timeline for all of these repairs and pass it on to your realtor. This will help you decide when to officially list your house and can be valuable information for buyers if you begin showing your home before all of your projects are completed.
If You Can’t Fix Everything…
You may be unable or unwilling to complete some of the repairs on your list or do any repairs at all. You can absolutely list your home as-is but be aware that it will impact how much buyers will be willing to pay and potentially how long it takes to sell your home.
If you’re considering listing your home as-is, it’s important to understand how a good buyer’s agent negotiates a price. They’ll first have their buyer put in an offer that’s at or, in a competitive market, above your asking price. Once that offer is accepted, the inspection period begins. The buyer’s agent will come back with a long list of repair requests, asking that the seller remedy the problems by either fixing them or offering money off the sale price so that the seller can do the repairs themselves. As the seller you’ll have to decide whether to offer a discount on the price of your home, also known as a concession, or risk the buyers terminating the contract and withdrawing their offer.
Talk with your realtor about concessions. You can offer them upfront by preemptively discounting the price of your home to account for its condition (your agent might use language like “DIY gem” or “handyman special” in your listing), offering to cover the buyer’s closing costs, or during negotiations following an inspection or appraisal. Concessions and price negotiations are a common part of selling any home no matter its condition, so it’s important to have this discussion regardless of how many improvements you plan to make to your property.
Put Your HOA To Work
Just as you prioritized your list of repairs you would be responsible for, prioritize your requests for your HOA. Fixing a broken gutter will have far more of an impact on the sale of your home than freshly planted flowers.
Before you send your list of repairs to your HOA, take a moment to review the covenant or agreement that governs your condo or homeowners’ association. Confirm what they’re responsible for maintaining and check for any restrictions that might impact potential buyers such as pet restrictions or parking limitations. Share this info with your realtor, especially items that might affect how your home is marketed like limitations on where “For Sale” signs can be placed. This is also a good time to send your agent your HOA management company’s - not your HOA board’s - contact information and a copy of your covenant or agreement.
Once you’re sure the items on your repair list are your HOA’s responsibility, it’s time to send them to your management company. Request a timeline for when they expect to complete the repairs and share this with your realtor. They may share this information with potential buyers if the projects aren’t yet completed during the showing.
Get Your Space Showroom Ready
You may have heard the term “home staging” on HGTV or from your realtor. While you can go all out by renting furniture or hiring a home stager, a thorough cleaning and decluttering is the most important part of making your home buyer-ready. Ideally, you’ll start decluttering as soon as you decide to sell your house - before you even engage a realtor.
This is a great time to host a yard sale. You might even invite your neighbors to join you and sell some of their own unwanted items. If a yard sale isn’t your style or you have unsold items after your sale, many neighborhoods and cities have Buy Nothing Facebook groups where residents can list items they want to give away. These groups help keep items that others might find useful out of landfills, making your move and community a little bit greener.
Once you’ve got your home cleared of unwanted items, it’s time to start removing some of the things you plan to keep. You don’t have to completely move out but you do want to declutter and depersonalize your space. When we’re living in our homes, the way we decorate them is often a reflection of who we are. But, when you’re selling your property, you want to showcase the house or condo itself, not the life you’ve lived there. The goal is for potential buyers to be able to visualize themselves living in your soon-to-be-former home. Displays of personal or sentimental items can make it hard for buyers to see themselves rather than you in the space.
Storage pods like the ones rented by U-Haul are one of the best ways to pack away treasured items before you move. You can pack them at your leisure and they’ll be delivered to your new home or a storage facility when you’re ready to move. Check with your HOA to make sure you’re allowed to park a pod on the property for an extended period - or at all.
If pods aren’t an option, just start packing. A neat stack of closed boxes in a closet is far less distracting to buyers than your collection of family heirlooms cluttering shelves or mantlepieces.
Make Plans for Showings
As a general rule, you and your family (including the furry, scaly, or feathered members) shouldn’t be hanging out in your home during showings or open houses. You want potential buyers to be able to envision themselves living in your condo and that can be very hard to do if the current residents are hovering nearby. In addition, leaving your pets in the home during showings could put them at risk of escaping or having an unsafe interaction with one of your visitors.
Make a plan for what you and your family will do during showings and open houses before you start scheduling anything. This is a great time to hang out at your favorite coffee shop, park, library, or a friend or family member’s house. If you have pets, have a place to store their belongings while you and your furry friend are out of the home, and launder any larger items like beds that may remain visible during showings.
After you’ve decided where you’ll go during showings, let your realtor know what days and times you’ll be able to put your plan into action. Once your agent knows when they can show your home, you’re ready to list!
Ready to sell your condo? Give us a call today!
Selling your home, whether it’s a condo or a house, is a big undertaking but we’re here to help. Reach out to Zelda and our Rock Star Team to get your home market ready and listed for sale. If you’re ready to sell your home, call Zelda Sheldon with Nashville Real Estate Rockstars at Benchmark Realty LLC: (615) 720-7192 or office: (615) 432-2919