You want to sell your Pittsburgh house, and you want to get top dollar.
Excellent!
But “What do I need to do to sell my house in Pittsburgh“?
Here are some tips on how to get your home ready to sell if you’re looking for top dollar that the market will bear:
*NOTE: These instructions are if you’re looking to get full retail value for your house sale. However, if you don’t want to do the things below… or don’t have the time or cash to do the things below… you can still sell your Pittsburgh house fast for a fair value in a win-win sale that’ll save you time and expense and headache.
1) Clean, clean and clean. Even vacant houses get dusty and dirty, so keep it up! Nothing short of gleaming perfection will impress buyers. If you’re not a total clean freak, hire someone who is to help you out until you sell. There are plenty of local Pittsburgh businesses that will be able to help you out with this
If you’re not a world class consider, consider finding somewhere else to live while you show your house. Maybe you can bribe some of your cleanliest friends to trade houses? It can’t hurt to ask! Seriously, keeping everything immaculate really helps buyers feel comfortable in your space, especially because most buyers want the space to be perfect before they buy the property.
2) Cultivate a cohesive, neutral style. You don’t have to paint everything off-white. In fact, some subtle colors can really help change the perception of spaces – for example, a soft yellow will help brighten up a dark kitchen, while a deep dark blue or green will help a bright bedroom to feel like a calm place to sleep (but please be careful, dark colors will also make rooms feel small).
Spend the money to get high-quality paint and professional help. In Pittsburgh this will cost you a few thousand dollars, but it may be worth it.
Sell Pittsburgh Home fast Tip: People will pay more money for a property with just the right colors and very neat lines – it makes the home feel better built, even though it’s just paint!
Optical illusions are real, and paint is one of the strongest and easiest ways to present you home beautifully. While you are at it, don’t forget about the outside.
3) Fix or replace anything that’s broken. I get it! It might feel like a waste of money for you to spend an extra couple hundred bucks on a dishwasher that someone else might just pull out and replace again. But really, quite a few buyers will get a home inspection and use the opportunity to negotiate the original agreed-upon price. As the seller, you’ll often end up paying more if you try to hide neglected maintenance from the purchaser – and of course you don’t want to be guilty of fraud.
It’s often a good use of money to hire a home inspector to come through before you put the property on the market. This could cost a couple of hundred dollars, but could save you thousands in the backend. Prospective buyers love to see an independent report on the condition of the house – it makes them feel very comfortable with the purchase.
4) Make only necessary improvements. WARNING! The biggest mistake people make when getting their house ready to sell is over-improving. They often spend too much money on customized frills that can’t be recovered in the sale.
Here is one of our rules of thumb, paint is about the only safe investment – it’s easy to overspend on almost everything else, and it’s easy to get ripped off by unscrupulous contractors. Pittsburgh is on average about 30% higher in cost than the way out suburbs for repairing you home. It might be a good idea to even get multiple bids on a property if you are planning on repairing anything major. Just make sure in your budget to include costs to get the bids done.
5) Get expert opinions. You should definitely find at least a few decent real estate agents who will help you price your property well, but be honest with them. If you’re going to market the property on your own(you can check out our ultimate guide for selling your home by owner in Pittsburgh here), don’t lie to them about your intentions. Great brokers are extremely rare, but they make more money for their clients than they earn.
6) Have a really great marketing plan. Again, great real estate agents earn their value by doing this work and spreading the advertising expenses across many clients. It’s pretty expensive and time-consuming to start from scratch on your own, but if you’re already a marketing expert you’re ahead of the pack.
If you’re not, spend the time listening to what the best brokers do to sell houses in Pittsburgh – just to educate yourself on the options.
7) Get a cash offer. We buy houses all over the Pittsburgh area, and we do all the work so you don’t have to deal with any of this stuff. We are Pittsburgh’s Trusted home buyers who buy properties fast for cash before you have to paint or renovate and on your timeline!
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Don’t Want To Do The Things Above Yourself? But Still Want To Sell Your Pittsburgh PA House Fast?
While everyone wants to get as much as they possibly can from their house sale… not everyone can do the things or wants to do the things required to sell it at full retail value to an end buyer.
Doing the repairs, cleaning the property up, upgrading the property, marketing the property… those all take money and can take lots of time.
If you have the funds to do these things... AND you can wait the 3-9 months it takes to sell houses in this market… then you’ll be better off financially to do those things then list it on the MLS (the main property listing service that real estate agents use).
If you don’t have the funds to do these things... AND can’t wait months to sell your house… then you may be a perfect fit for our local Pittsburgh house buying service. You’ll submit basic info about your house over here on our website, we’ll evaluate your house, we’ll make you a fair all-cash offer on your house, and you can decide if it’s a fit for you.
Then we can close FAST (often times within 7 days) if you need us to, because we serve our clients needs
Take a look at what we’ll pay you not to do anything versus the time, expense and hassle involved with doing it on your own.
So if you’re still asking “what do I need to do to sell my house in Pittsburgh“… now you have 2 solid options.
Either…
- Fix the property up and spend thousands of dollars in renovations to sell it at top dollar.
- Let us do all of the work and we’ll make you a cash offer on your house in AS-IS condition. This saves you time, money, and gets the hassle and headache off of your hands.
If you need to sell a property near Pittsburgh fast and easy, we can help you.
We buy properties like yours from people who need to sell fast.