Did you know that an appraisal on your home is the most important thing that you can have that affects the market value of your home? When you’re thinking of selling your home, you might think that finding a buyer is crucial. However, if you can’t get an appraisal scheduled, you might end up selling your home below market value. There are a few factors that can affect your appraisal. Things such as cracks in your walls or a neglected backyard are some of the things that you should ensure that you fix before you schedule one. This is why it’s important for you to know these 8 ways to get ready for an appraisal. You should keep on reading to find out more.
1. Get an Early Appraisal
The fact is, getting an appraisal should come with a string of advantages for you. In the same breath, you should still prepare for some drawbacks. This is why getting an early appraisal should be a good idea. Deciding on when you should sell your home can be a challenge. But if you can get your appraisal done before you even list your home, it should benefit you in the following ways.
- When it’s accurately done, it can help you to adequately price your home
- It can help you to navigate special selling circumstances
- It can give you valuable ideas such as re roofing to upgrade your home before you sell it
If you want to get an early appraisal, it’s important for you to do your homework. At the end of the day, your appraisal should dictate the lending amount that will be paid to your prospective buyer. When you get an early appraisal done, it helps you to understand your home’s worth. Moreover, it should help you to address any issues that you may need to fly before it’s too late. For instance, if you need to do a roof installation before you list your home. The main idea behind getting an early appraisal is that it should give you an advantage to increase the value of your home when you decide to sell it.
2. Focus on Quick Fixes
Have you been ignoring doing a quick AC repair for the past couple of months? If you’re trying to get an appraisal done soon, you shouldn’t. There are many quick fixes that you should consider doing around your home. Doing this should help to increase the value of your home. You don’t want your potential buyer to change her mind because they viewed a home with minor plumbing issues. In addition, the evaluation that your appraiser does can be influenced by the smallest maintenance issue in your home.
You don’t need to spend a lot of money trying to get your home in prime condition. These fixes can be done at intervals. For instance, you could opt for doing a roofing repair instead of replacing it. If you fail to make these quick fixes, you might lose more than the couple of hundred dollars that you’ll spend.
3. Improve your Curb Appeal
You’d be surprised to find that a simple yet attractive view of your home from the street can improve your home’s value. In addition, it could improve your neighbor, Sarah’s home as well. The great thing is that there are different things, such as your landscaping, features, and lighting accents, that you can use to improve your curb appeal. Your curb appeal can also help to prevent criminals from breaking into your home. This is why it should be important to you even if you’re not trying to get an appraisal done on your home. However, if you’re still looking for compelling reasons why you should enhance your curb appeal in time for your appraisal, you’re not alone. However, it’s important for you to understand that it’s something that you should consider doing to add the value that you want to your home.
These are some ideas that you should consider when you want to improve your curb appeal.
- Use grass, landscaping, and trees
- Look at the exterior scatter like your patio and roof
- Remove the weeds and cracks on your driveway
- Consider painting your front door and garage door
- Assess any additional areas that influence the attractiveness of your curb appeal
4. Give it a Deep Clean
Did you know that the state of cleanliness that your home is in can affect your appraisal? That’s right. If you don’t pay attention to all the dust and areas that are hard to clean, your home’s value can decrease significantly when your appraisal finally happens. When you’re a homeowner, keeping your home spotless the whole time is something that you didn’t expect would be so tedious. Not only do you have to invest in the best carpet cleaners, but you also need to ensure that you follow the correct cleaning method.
The thing is, if you have a hardwood floor, you should be careful about how you scrub the surface. Besides, you don’t want your appraiser to find scratches all over your floor. When you’ve been given the date of your appraisal, you should start making sure that your home is spotless. You should ensure that you pay extra attention to your scruffy walls and murky carpets. If you can, you should consider getting a professional residential cleaning service to help you get your home looking fresh and new in time for your appraisal.
Besides, when you clean your home regularly, it helps to improve your air quality. This positively impacts your quality of life. Moreover, it helps to reduce any issues that your lads might have with asthma or any other related illnesses.
5. Compare similar homes
Sometimes you’ll get the shock of your life to find that the valve of your neighbor’s home, Sarah, can also influence the kind of appraisal that you receive. The fact of the matter is that the market value of your home is largely influenced by how much it compares to the rest of the homes that have recently been sold in your area. If you want to beat the system and find out how much your home should be sold for, you should speak to your real estate agent. She should be able to give you all the information that you need about any recent sale prices. This should give you valuable insight into where your home stands.
Just make sure that you pay close attention to the homes that are similar to yours. So, look at the features. How do the front doors look? Is the yard better than yours? When you observe these features, you should then use your information to upgrade your home. This is the easiest way that you can ensure that your home’s value remains on par with the market value in your neighborhood.
6. Check that Everything Works
The last thing that you want to happen is for your home to not meet the requirements of your scheduled appraisal. It’s a different case if your inspector is the one who notices any faults. However, if your appraiser is the one who does, then it might be a problem. This can directly lower your appraisal rating. The best way to see if things are working as they should is when you go through everything yourself. This is from checking walls, your plumbing, and all your other utilities. You’d be surprised to find what a thorough inspection can find out. For example, you may find that your electrical wiring needs attention. Nowadays, finding electricians to sort out any of your wiring problems has never been easier. All you need to do is to do a specific keyword search on the internet for the services that you require in your area.
When it comes to fixing and inspecting certain things in your home, it’s important to leave them to a professional. You don’t want any surprises with faulty appliances when you get your appraisal done. An inspector is bound to give you a detailed inspection. There are things that you might overlook when you inspect your home. But you should rest-assure that it won’t be the case if you pay for a quality service. It’s always in your best interests to choose a reputable inspector. You want everything to work in your favor when the day comes.
7. Go Green
You can never go wrong with adding fresh flowers and lively plants in your home. Not only does this benefit your health, but it also improves the overall look and feel of your home. Yet, this doesn’t mean that you should spend exorbitant money on creating a nursery for your scheduled appraisal. The best practice that you should consider when going green is that it should be something that you do gradually. As soon as you get the idea of listing your home, you should start thinking of creative ways to spruce up the interior and exterior of your home. If you already consider yourself a plant parent, you should think of ways to reuse them in your space. In this instance, you can change your flower pots and change where you’ve placed some of your plants.
It’s important for you to declutter your space as much as possible. So, think of getting rid of some of the flowers and plants that are taking up too much space. If you see that some no longer work with your style, you should think of getting rid of them or repurposing them. The great thing about going green is that you can recycle almost everything that you choose to use. Moreover, you shouldn’t be afraid of adding new things. Your garden can benefit a great deal from you adding some exotic plants. You not only make it look better than Sarah’s one, but Xeriscaping plants can help you to save a lot of water. This is a bonus. Especially if you live in a region that’s affected by water shortages. Most importantly, this should score you some brownie points with your appraiser.
8. Sell Your Home
Your appraisal is the ideal opportunity for you to talk about your home. Besides, who’s more qualified to talk about your home than you? You should use this opportunity to highlight all the things that you love about your home. If you’ve recently added new features, you should let it be known during your appraisal. Don’t be shy about anything. In fact, point out that you’ve recently replaced the windows. The trick is to get your appraiser to notice all the features that should benefit your appraisal performance. It’s important to give your home a unique selling point. In addition, you should still give your appraiser enough space to make their own observations.
If you’ve gone over the most important details to ensure that your home is in good condition, you shouldn’t worry much about things that are beyond your control. You’ve done all that you can to ensure that your home’s value is where you want it to be.
In summary, the main takeaway from getting your home ready for an appraisal is that you should make sure that everything is in good condition. This means that you shouldn’t leave fixing things to the last minute. However, you shouldn’t spend money remodeling or fixing things that don’t need to be fixed. Sometimes it’s okay to just repurpose some furniture items or to declutter your backyard. At the end of the day, you want to show the good parts of your home. You want to leave a lasting impression on both your appraiser and the buyer.
It’s essential for you to follow the tips that are listed in this guide. But you should also understand your neighborhood better. And you should know what you want to gain from your appraisal. If you can get your real-estate agent to supply you with any additional information to compare your home, you should place yourself in an advantageous position.