From Livable to Sellable: 3 Apps that Prep You to Show Your Home's Best Side
Originally written for and published by Huffington Post
Selling a homes requires coordination of several details. If you have hired an Agent+ (that is what I like to call a top-notch, professional REALTOR®), then she will undoubtedly walk you through advertising, negotiating offers, complying with ever-changing laws, meeting deadlines, and closing the home sale. But your agent needs your help with getting the home seen, and seen in the best possible light. The best marketing in the world may be worthless if prospective home-buyers are frustrated before they can even make an offer. Here are 3 apps that can help.
Autodesk Homestyler
There is no place like home: the big comfy pillows, your favorite chair, the aroma of dinner simmering, or the laughter of your family. We buy homes to live and enjoy life on our terms, in our way, and at our pace. However, the familiar and inviting landmarks, sights, and smells of your home to you may be a turn-off to potential home-buyers.
Your home may need a modest or bold makeover to convey to buyers how awesome it is, going from being livable to sellable.
Your Agent+may have had this hard conversation with you. Yet, you may be at a loss for how you can spruce up your abode tastefully and effectively, especially if you have a limited budget.
Enter Autodesk Homestyler. This is a 3D room designer app that will allow you to get a visual idea of how your home can be restyled. You can take pictures of your existing rooms and experiment with adding furniture, painting the walls, changing the flooring, and so much more with simply a few swipes of your finger in the Autodesk Homestyler app. If your Agent+ has a flair for decorating or is connected with a professional home stager, they can use this app simultaneously with you to follow your creations, make suggestions, and give you a mock-up design.
Click the video below to see this app in action.
OfferUp
Once you style your home to attract more buyers, you may discover you have some furniture pieces that are... well... eyesores with the new decor. But the great thing is that one woman's decorating discards can be another woman's decorating treasure.
You may not feel like dealing with the hassle of coordinating and orchestrating a garage sale. And God forbid it rains that day! Instead of being subjected to varying weather and oddball shoppers, OfferUp is a mobile app that allows you to instantly snap, click, and sell different household items in minutes. No more having time-consuming, labor intensive garage sales where random passerbyers traipse through your yard and belongings, potentially damaging something.
The most pivotal feature of OfferUp is you can work with people that have verified their identity, of which you can and should keep a record.
You can get away from the anonymity of other online selling sites where people have been put in precarious situations when a poser had ill intentions for calling on the ad.
Click the video below and see how quickly you can use this app.
TourSimply
Now that your house is poised to win the beauty pageant of homes for sale, it is just a matter of coordinating available times with your Agent+ for the home to be seen. This sounds easier than it often is due to the varied work and travel schedules of would-be buyers. Scheduling multiple home showings is further complicated by the fact that selling your home is likely not your full-time job or first priority if you are raising children, making a mark in your career, tending to elderly family members, or all of the above. Nonetheless, if you are not able to coordinate time to show your home, you lower the likelihood of it getting sold!
TourSimply is a free (for now), easy-to-use solution that I recommend you set up with your Agent+ before you have your first home showing. With TourSimply you can upload your availability from your favorite internet-accessible device (computer, laptop, tablet, cellphone) to a shared calendar for your Agent+ to see in real-time. Next, your Agent+ schedules home showings with prospective home-buyers and then plugs those times into the shared calendar. You get text and email notices and reminders, keeping you on your toes.
TourSimply is a free (for now), easy-to-use solution that I recommend you set up with your Agent+ before you have your first home showing. With TourSimply you can upload your availability from your favorite internet-accessible device (computer, laptop, tablet, cellphone) to a shared calendar for your Agent+ to see in real-time. Next, your Agent+ schedules home showings with prospective home-buyers and then plugs those times into the shared calendar. You get text and email notices and reminders, keeping you on your toes.
TourSimply can help eliminate the back-and-forth scheduling dance that no one likes to be dragged into doing.
Take a sneak peak by clicking the video below:
Have you used these apps before? Drop me a line in the comments below.
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