How do you get a home ready for sale?

For sale in Cureton
Listed by Gina Lorenzo
704.575.7605

Getting a home ready for sale does not have to cost a lot of money. Focusing on the right things will help reduce a seller's time on the market and will result in a higher sales price.

DO spend money on:

Cleaning your home. Sometimes the simple things get overlooked by a seller. A clean home gives a message that the seller cares about the home and has maintained it. Making a home super clean is one of the most important components to staging for success. Do not overlook washing the windows! Windows never get more attention than when the home is on the market.

Paint: Painting is relatively inexpensive but adds a lot to brighten up a home. Neutralize rooms that have been personalized but avoid going "all white". Buyers are not looking for a "sterile" experience. Ask a painter about new color trends or look on Houzz for neutral color ideas.

Backsplash in kitchen: Dress up a kitchen with a new glass backsplash. It's an inexpensive way to give a tired kitchen a facelift usually for under a $1,000. Lowes has a great tile selection and will even come out and install it for a very reasonable price.

Front Door: Give the front door a fresh coat of paint and make sure the handle set looks shiny. Buyers spend time waiting on the porch for the Realtor to open the door. It gets a good "look" before Buyers even make inside the house.

Do NOT spend money on:

Improvements that are not readily apparent on a walk through. This is not the time to upgrade the hot water heater from a 50 gallon to a 75 gallon if the 50 gallon is functioning fine.

The Garage: If you always talked about drywalling the garage and putting an epoxy floor down but never got around to it, don't do it now! Most buyers only consider the size of the garage and often women don't even give it so much as a glance. I find that sellers love to spend a lot of time "organizing" and "cleaning" the garage when they are getting ready to go on the market. My advice is to use that time and energy on the interior of the home and forget about the garage. It wont affect a buyer's decision to buy the house and chances are their garage doesn't look much better.

Cabinets: Replacing cabinets is expensive and often requires also replacing tops, sinks and the kitchen faucet. I advise sellers to have their cabinets painted if they are oak or dated looking. It is a fraction of the cost of new cabinets and can add a lot of appeal to an otherwise dated kitchen or bathroom.

The first step in selling your home

Are you thinking about selling your home? It might seem like an overwhelming process, and you may have a lot of questions, like:

* How much is my home worth?
* How long will it take to sell my house?
* How much will it cost to sell my house, including closing costs?
* What do I need to do to get my house ready to show and sell?

If you're interested in selling your home, the first step is finding a trusted real estate adviser. Gina Lorenzo, Broker/Realtor®, can provide a complementary consultation that will help answer your questions. The answers will be straight-forward, honest, and helpful to you as a potential home seller. Gina's an experienced real estate broker with a focus on providing excellent customer service and being a trusted adviser to each of her clients.

We offer an affordable and negotiable full-service listing package, which includes:

* MLS/IDX advertising for your home. This means that your home will be advertised on the major professional listing services in the greater Charlotte area.
* Advertising on over 60 online search engines
* Complementary home staging and virtual tour
* Professional photography
* Large, visible sign and lockbox
* An individualized action plan for success.

Contacting us does not obligate you to sell your home with us. We're here to help sellers understand local market conditions, understand the process of selling real estate, and make informed decisions about their next home sale.

Homes for Sale in Marvin Creek

Marvin Creek clubhouse
in Marvin, NC

Marvin Creek is a beautiful, all-brick neighborhood located in Marvin, NC (Union County) built by the popular builder, Toll Brothers. Nestled among picturesque horse farms, this quiet, 100-home community features many desirable amenities for homeowners, including a luxurious clubhouse, fitness center, playground, tennis courts, walking trails and a stunning pool complex including two pools, an enclosed toddler pool, water slides and a lazy river.

For your convenience, we've also setup a "quick link" to a home search for popular neighborhoods, including Marvin Creek:

* Homes for sale in Marvin Creek in Marvin, NC

Homes for sale in neighboring communities:

* Homes for sale in The Chimneys of Marvin in Waxhaw, NC
* Homes for sale in Canterfield Creek in Marvin, NC
* Homes for sale in Providence Downs in Waxhaw, NC
* Homes for sale in Providence Downs South in Waxhaw, NC
* Homes for sale in Hunter Oaks in Waxhaw, NC
* Homes for sale in The Reserve in Waxhaw, NC

We can provide free, up-to-date market reports for neighborhoods within the greater Charlotte area, including Waxhaw, Weddington and Marvin, NC. Simply contact us and let us know which neighborhood(s) you're interested in!

As a courtesy, we also provide a free web site search for any home listed by any broker and firm in the area. You can customize your home search by neighborhood, home size, bedrooms, bathrooms, schools - a whole host of criteria to fit your exact needs

What is Variable Commission?

The end of the calendar year is a great time to focus on marketing efforts, as many buyers and sellers will be soon making decisions about their homes and about hiring real estate brokers.

The theme of our latest advertising campaign is variable commission. We don't have a set fee for our earned listings. We believe that all homes are unique and real estate marketing plans should be unique, too! "We call it SMART marketing and what this means for you is reduced days on the market and more money in your pocket."

Here is a sample advertisement that we will run in a community newsletter in the Thornhill neighborhood of Ballantyne (South Charlotte, NC).  We've had tremendous success selling properties in this neighborhood and would love to let local residents know that we can successfully serve them with our experience and our SMART marketing plans!