Whether you've been planning to sell your house for a while, or just decided today, there are likely a lot of things you need to do to get your home ready to sell. Find out the best jobs to do yourself to save big!
Last year my husband's company downsized his position and we had a big decision to make: Get another job and stay in the city, or sell our house and make the move to the country that we had been dreaming of for so long... We chose the later.
However, that meant that we needed to sell our house as quickly as possible so that we didn't drain our savings paying for a house in the city while living in the country!
We contacted a great Realtor who sold us the home to begin with and got started prepping the house to list. When you want to sell your house fast, there is a lot of "make ready" that has to happen before you can list it for sale.
The "to-do" list we got from our Realtor would have cost almost $10,000 to have someone else do the work! HOWEVER, Realtors know what they are doing. The things they suggest are meant to sell your house fast and for top dollar! So it's worth it to find a way... but sometimes it can be difficult.
We are on such a tight budget that we really had to take a hard look at what we were going to pay to have done. I'm so glad we did, because we ended up saving THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!
So what should you pay to have done and what should you do yourself?
5 Tasks to Do Yourself When Selling Your Home
This list is subjective I know, but these are all things that most people are able to do themselves in order to save money!
Painting
I can almost guarantee you that painting will be one of the first things your Realtor mentions.
Unless you have super neutral paint colors throughout your whole house, with no signs of use! Even so, there will be something that needs a touch up... Baseboards, doors, trim work... Something!
Save the money and do this yourself. Yes it might take you longer to do the job, but it will save you big money.
We were quoted over $5000 to paint the 3 rooms in our house! I couldn't justify the expense so I decided to just do it myself.
Yes, it took me a week of nap times to finish the 3 rooms, but it was so worth it to save the money!
Buying the paint and painting supplies came in right at $111... that's a $4889 savings!
Cleaning
Boy, this one was tough for me. I would have loved to have just left the house with the baby, grabbed a hot tea, and enjoyed a day out while someone scrubbed every nook and cranny of my house.
But, it wasn't in the budget, so we found the time (and energy) to do it ourselves.
It helped that we had a room by room DETAILED list of what needed to be done. I didn't feel overwhelmed by the job as a whole because I was able to just focus on each room at a time.
Savings for this task was over $300.
Yard Work and Landscaping
This one was tempting to let slide. With it getting dark right when Mr AMH gets off work, and us being out of town every weekend to fix up our next house, paying someone else to do the outside work seemed like such a good idea...
Until we got the quote!
So we worked in the dark and got it done, saving us over $1,000!
Our Realtor wanted the yard done, new shrubbery put in the beds, new mulch, and shutters added to the front of the house.
The materials cost about $160 and took us several evenings to complete. However, the savings opportunity for us doing the work was too great to ignore!
Pressure Washing
We were fortunate enough to have a pressure washer in the family (my brother had one), so we were able to save about $100 by doing this ourselves.
If you don't have a pressure washer "in the family", ask around. I would wager that SOMEONE you know has one they would be willing to loan you.
Packing
When you stage a house to get it ready to sell you basically have to make it look like no one really lives there.
For us this meant packing up a ridiculous amount of crafting and cooking supplies, not to mention the extra furniture that needed to be removed.
Having someone else pack and move all the extra stuff out would have cost $3500!
Instead, we spent $150 on boxes and another $150 on a moving truck.
A $3200 savings!!!
Basically you need to decide if time or money is in greater supply. For us, it was time by default because we had next to no money to work with!
Staging a house and making it ready to sell can be done for way less than quoted when you're willing to put in the time and effort!
We ended up saving $9500 by doing these tasks ourselves!
Want more information on how we save so much? Grab the Details NOW!
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