Improve your property and sell it more quickly

24 Nov Improve your property and sell it more quickly

This week on my blog, I will be sharing tips for marking your real estate to ensure quick flips and more profit. After all, you don’t want holding costs (like property taxes) to take money out of your pocket. And holding on to a piece of real estate that you want to sell can slow down your momentum and even cause you to lose focus.
Today I’ll start with the topic of making improvements to your property.

In most cases, your goal when flipping real estate is to hold onto the property for as little time as possible (the exception being buy-and-hold investing when the property is in the path of growth). Sometimes – like during a double escrow – you will only be the owner for a matter of minutes before transferring the title to a third party. So how can you make that property sell faster? One surefire way is to make small but noticeable improvements to the parcel.

Consider some examples:

• Can you clean up garbage or junk that the previous owner may have left on the property?
• Can you do a little bit of landscaping and trim the grass and bushes?
• What about planting a few nice looking plants at the entrance?
• How about putting up a simple fence – or at least some posts – to clearly delineate the property’s boundaries?
• A “for sale” sign with your phone number/website isn’t technically an improvement, but it is very helpful for getting the word out.
• Have you considered paying for a professional surveyor to come out and plant stakes? Or what about having a percolation test done or contacting utility companies to inquire about bringing out electrical and water service?

Most of these options are very cheap, and even if an improvement costs a little money it generally raises the cost of the property many times over.

Tomorrow: Using pictures to sell your property faster.