Get ready to sell your Alaska home this summer
It’s no secret that spring and summer are the peak home-buying seasons in Alaska. Folks that want to move usually plan for it to happen around the time the kids get out of school so the months leading up to August are typically our busiest. Plus, the weather is more conducive to getting out to house-hunt during this time than during the winter months, which also contributes to the busyness of the spring home-buying season.
If you’re one of the many Alaska homeowners planning to sell this summer, the time to prepare is right now. You’ll have lots of competition as we get deeper into June and anything you can do to smooth the way now will put you way out in front of the rest of them.
You can hire the Unity Home Group Team now as well and we will take care of the photography (see number 1 below), get the marketing plan pinned down and help you in other ways as well.
Here are some additional tips to help you hit the ground running in summer:
1. Photograph the home
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) claims that 90 percent of homebuyers shopped online at some point during their home search. Most of these buyers say that if a listing lacks photos they will skip it. This is why Unity Home Group’s digital marketing plan is so critical to our listing clients’ success. We employ a professional photographer for every listing, ensuring that only clear, compelling photos appear in all of our marketing materials for the homes we list.
Anything we can do now to prepare the marketing pieces for the home paves the way for a quick listing and ensures the home is ready for buyers’ eyes. Our professional photographer can come out and take the interior shots now, so we can kick our marketing plan into high gear when you are ready to list.
2. Have the home inspected
Sure, the buyer will have the home inspected, but why wait to find out about items you’ll need to eventually fix? Have the home professionally inspected and get to work making the necessary repairs. This way your home, unlike those you’ll be competing against, will be in turnkey condition when it hits the market.
3. Pack and store
You’ll need to rent a storage unit to hold everything you’ll be taking with you when you move and Alaska has no shortage of self-storage businesses from which to choose. Rent one that is large enough to hold not only all of the boxes you’ll be moving when the house sells, but furniture as well. You may find that you’ll need to remove some of your furniture when staging the home.
No, it’s not too early to start packing and a good place to begin is in the garage. Go through all those boxes, get rid of what you don’t want and pack away the rest for the move – in the rented storage unit. Pack up the interior of the home as well – anything you can remove from the home will help rooms, closets, cupboards and drawers appear roomier and it will make the decluttering and organizing process much easier.
4. Ensure your curb appeal
It’s spring, so there really no excuse for you to put off spiffing up the yard and the exterior of the home. Clean up the landscaping, green up the lawn and spread fresh mulch in the garden beds. How’s the porch furniture looking? Drag it into the garage and give it a new coat of paint. While you’re at the home improvement store to buy the paint, consider picking up some bigger, bolder house numbers as well.
5. Clean
We do our heavy cleaning in the spring for a reason – winter is brutal on the interior of a home. We buckle them up tight to keep out the elements but in doing so we trap all kinds of nasty odors and the mud and grime that we bring with us from the outdoors.
If you skipped spring cleaning, now is the time to get to it. As we get closer to listing the home, it will be important to get rid of the smells by washing or dry cleaning everything that traps them. This includes curtains and drapes, mini-blinds, upholstered furniture and carpets.
If you hibernated all winter, knowing you would be selling this summer, you have no time to waste. Sure, it’s a lot of work but getting started now will pay off with big dividends during the peak home buying season in Alaska.
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