Halyard Homes knows the house selling business - best price, fast sale.
Your Guide to Selling A Home…
EXPERTS IN THE MARKET
All day, every day, we’re analyzing the Hampton Roads / Tidewater housing market. We know what’s out there, what’s happening with local housing developments, and what people out there are looking for right now. If you’re serious about selling your home, you need this information, or you need an agent who does. Halyard Homes Realty knows the market really well, and that’s the key that unlocks doors and sells houses. So relax. Because we know the Virginia Beach housing market, you don’t have to.
GET THE BEST PRICE
Here’s a tip for making sure you enter the housing market on a strong footing. Get the price right first time. You don’t want to have to wait for months for a buyer, only to find you're going to need to drop the price to sell it. But you don’t want to underestimate the value of your home either. At Halyard Homes we’re comparing properties and making professional pricing decisions all the time. We know what houses like yours are selling for in Hampton Roads. We also know what makes your home unique. You can trust our estimations and professional guidance.
FINISHING TOUCHES
With so many houses out there, your home needs that extra edge to attract the right buyer. Halyard Homes work with both buyers and sellers in the Virginia Beach – Chesapeake - Norfolk area, which means we have the inside information on exactly what they’re looking for. Do you want recommendations on work to do? We can advise. Looking for contacts to do the repairs or finishing touches for you? We’ll give you names. We can also let you know how to identify and source the important paperwork your next buyer will want to see before they request it. We’ve got it covered.
PICTURE PERFECT PHOTOS
Just about everyone who’s in the market for buying a Virginia Beach home these days starts searching for it online. That means the visual impact of your listing is all-important. Professional photography really can give your house the best shot at a sale, and in our experience a well-photographed home can sell for a substantially higher price. We can arrange that photo-shoot for you, or give you expert advice on the basics of achieving your own successful home photography. For most sales though, we recommend professional photos, and they’re not as costly as you think. Make that first exposure to your home really count with professional quality pictures.
EXPERTS IN LISTING AND MARKETING
We make it look easy, but a lot goes into the online marketing of properties. Your house needs to be easily found, by the right people, across the internet, and in all the places buyers are looking for Hampton Roads properties like yours. Halyard Homes has trusted links and contacts across all the major networks and professional listings, and that’s the secret to our success in real estate. When you consider that 90% of buyers start their search for property online these days, you need a Virginia Beach Real Estate Agency with proven skills and experience in internet sales. Hands down, that’s us.
GETTING THE WORD OUT
It’s not all about the internet of course. Traditional property sales expertise is a strong part of the Halyard Homes heritage, and we’ll use every trick in the book to get the marketplace to hear about your home. That includes featuring your property in our brochures, flyers or postcards, spreading the word with realtors and agents across the board, and inviting potential buyers to events and showings that get them through your front door. And of course, our listings are promoted using email and social media, as part of our regular marketing campaigns. We’ll ensure full volume advertising of your property.
COMMUNICATION IS KEY
Your house sale is a team effort, so you can be confident that when Halyard Homes Realty is selling your Hampton Roads home, we'll keep talking to you. We’ll be updating you on progress. We’ll keep letting you know the feedback from viewings. We’ll share our professional insights, and advising on your best strategic moves, the whole way through. We’ll ensure your home stays in the front runners for any buyer who’s in the market for a home like yours.
SHOWING YOUR HOME
First Impressions are Lasting Impressions.
The exterior of your home often determines how buyers will view the interior, so:
- Make sure your front entrance is clean and inviting.
- Paint or replace your front door if it's faded or worn.
- Add some paint to shutters, trim and any other outside features showing signs of wear.
Accentuate the Positive.
"How we live in a home and how we sell a home are often two different things." Try to see your home with a fresh perspective and arrange each room to bring out its best attributes, including:
- Keep windows and floors clean.
- Replace faded wallpaper and glue any areas that have come away from the wall.
- Repair worn woodwork.
- Repaint scarred or dirty walls in a neutral color.
- Steam clean carpeting or replace it if necessary.
- Repair loose knobs, sticking doors and windows, warped cabinet drawers, broken light switches and other minor flaws.
- Check and repair caulking in bathtubs and showers.
Try to see your home with a fresh perspective and arrange each room to bring out its best attributes, including:
- Open draperies and curtains to let the light in during the showing.
- Remove all unnecessary clutter from your attic, basement and closets to better display spacious rooms (consider storage or a garage sale to dispose of extraneous items).
- Arrange all your rooms neatly and remove excess furniture. Keep fresh, clean towels in the bathroom. Use candles or air fresheners to make the room smell pleasant.
Put Your Home in the best possible light.
Strategically lighting your home, even during daytime showings, can create a cozy mood and highlight positive attributes of each room, so:
- Avoid the use of overhead lighting that makes rooms look washed out and lifeless.
- Be creative and arrange lamps to help smaller rooms seem larger, and large rooms seem more intimate.
- Use lighting to highlight the "living areas" of your home, such as a pair of chairs near a fireplace, or a table in a breakfast area.
Inside:
- Clear all unnecessary objects from furniture throughout the house. Keep decorative objects on the furniture restricted to groups of 1, 3, or 5 items.
- Clear all unnecessary objects from the kitchen countertops. If it hasn't been used for three months…put it away!
- Clear refrigerator fronts of messages, pictures, etc. (A sparse kitchen helps buyers mentally move their own things into your kitchen.)
- In the bathroom, remove any unnecessary items from countertops, tubs, shower stalls and commode tops. Keep only your most needed cosmetics, brushes, perfumes, etc., in one small group on the counter. Coordinate towels to one or two colors only.
- Rearrange or remove some of the furniture if necessary. As owners, many times we have too much furniture in a room. This is wonderful for our personal enjoyment, but when it comes to selling, we need to thin out as much as possible to make rooms appear larger.
- Take down or rearrange certain pictures or object on walls. Patch and paint if necessary.
- Review the house inside room by room. Paint any room needing paint, clean carpets or drapes that need it, clean windows.
- Leave on certain lights during the day. During "showings" turn on all lights and lamps.
- Have stereo FM on during the day for all viewings.
- Lockbox--#1 Importance: "If we don't have it, they won't show it."
Outside:
- Trim landscaping to reveal architectural detail (bottom of windows, etc.). "If they can't see it, we can't sell it."
- Go around the perimeter of the house and move all garbage cans, discarded wood scraps, extra building materials, etc., into the garage.
- Check gutters and/or roof for dry rot. Make sure they are swept and cleaned.
- Look at all plants…prune bushes and trees. Keep plants from blocking windows. "You can't sell a house if you can't see it." Plants are like children-they grow so fast!!
- Weed and then bark all planting areas. Keep lawn freshly cut and fertilized. Remove any dead plants or shrubs.
- Clear patios or decks of all small items, such as small planters, flower pots, charcoal, barbecues, toys, etc. (Put them in the garage).
- Check paint condition of the house-especially the front door and trim. "Curb appeal really works!"
In General:
Try to look at your house "through the buyer's eyes" as though you've never seen it or been there before. Any time or money spent on these items will bring you back more money in return, and hopefully a faster sale.
SEALING THE DEAL
Getting that first offer is exciting, but it's just the start. You want to secure the very best price for your home, and that’s where we at Halyard Homes come into our own. We are professional negotiators, which means you can expect to achieve a far higher price for your home than with an inexperienced agent. We’ve done this many, many times before, and we have well-established networks and contacts that mean we have the best chance to broker the best deal for you. You don’t need to face the negotiating table alone. We’ll represent you confidently, and we'll do our utmost to get the outcome you were hoping for all along. Ready to sell your home? We’re here ready and waiting to sell your property fast and at the right price. Get in touch with us today. Let’s do this.
Learn how Halyard Homes, REALTORS® sells homes fast for the highest value
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