How to Sell Your Home Fast and For the Most Money - The 3 Big Steps

Amy Solodyankin | Real Estate Broker

Selling a home isn’t just about putting a sign in the yard and waiting for offers to roll in. It’s a strategy. Every decision, from how you price your home, to the way you prepare it, to how it’s presented online, has a direct impact on how quickly it sells and how much money you walk away with at the closing table.

The truth is, buyers often decide how they feel about your home within the first few minutes of being on the property. The experience they had browsing through the photos, needs to translate throughout the entire showing, because most people buy from their emotions.

So here are the 3 steps to sell your home fast and for the most money.

Step 1. - The Purge and Prep

I believe that preparation makes the biggest difference between why some homes sell while others sit on the market. There are a few reasons for this.

People see new listings pop up like moles in the ground, but behind some of the most desirable properties… I can guarantee there was some serious prep and a very skilled cleaning lady behind it all.

Why is this important?? Can’t I just sell “as-is?”

You can do whatever you want with your home, but to get the highest possible price, you need to create demand, and yes... cleaning, organizing, decluttering, depersonalizing and fixing minor damages is the first step.

First of all, buyers are always looking for pitfalls. Anything that looks out of the ordinary or seems costly to repair, they will pick it apart. From my experience, if I’m showing a home to a buyer and they see a dent in the hallway or missing flooring, rat traps, or smell something musty as soon as they walk in, they won’t be focused on how great the house is, they’ll be searching for whatever else has been neglected by the owner.

On the contrary, if a home is sparkling clean, all the light bulbs are working, paint touched up, nice trim, clean gutters, serviced appliances, fixed leaks, repaired damages, and smells and feels so bright and open—this makes a major impact on the buyers’ perception of your home and creates urgency and trust.

A home that feels well-maintained, and move-in ready gives buyers confidence. It tells them, “This home has been cared for,” and that reassurance translates directly into stronger offers.

Step 2. - Pricing

The next big piece of the puzzle is pricing. And let me tell you, this is where strategy really comes into play. Pricing is actually a BIG part of the marketing strategy, but deserves it’s own segment. Price your home too high and it sits on the market, gathering dust and making buyers wonder what’s wrong with it. Price it too low and sure, you’ll get attention—but you could be leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table.

The goal is to find that sweet spot. A price that grabs attention, creates urgency, and gets buyers through the door while still protecting the value of your home and also giving you leverage in negotiations. Reality is, the home also needs to pass the appraisal, and that’s the catch.

Most buyers will rely on financing to purchase a home, and their bank will send out an appraiser to analyze all the recently sold properties similar to yours along with current market conditions to determine if the price you are asking is justified.

If the appraisal on your home comes in low, meaning under your asking price… then there’s a negotiation between the buyer and seller on who is going to cover the difference. If you price your home correctly, and there is enough urgency from the buyer, it’s SO much easier to negotiate the appraisal gap in your favor.

Studying the recent active, pending and sold properties will help create the smart pricing strategy for your listing. This does require detaching yourself emotionally, and putting your appraiser hat on.

Step 3. - Proper Marketing

This is where professional photography, video, and staging make the difference, but this ONLY works after the first 2 steps are completed. If you don’t have the right pricing strategy and the home is not prepared, trust me, unless interest rates are at 2.3%, no matter how much you try to market a home, it will not sell for top dollar or at all! I speak from experience on this one.

Why are quality photos important then?

Think about it: the very first showing doesn’t happen at your house, it happens online. If the photos are dark, cluttered, furniture too bulky or taken on an iPhone in bad lighting, buyers are going to scroll right past and not even get off their couch to see your home… unless by the look of the photos they think they can get a deal (and that’s not what you’re going for). But if the photos look bright, spacious, and inviting in those first few clicks? That’s when the buzz starts.

After all the marketing materials have been collected, we need to expose the home to as many people as possible. The more eyes on the property, the higher the chance of selling for the highest price the market will give us. Posting on the MLS, Zillow, Redfin, Trulia, Realtor.com and all the major sites and broker-owned sites is key. As well as using social media to it’s advantage with paid ads, organic content, private groups and stories. Email marketing, post cards, cold-calling and news article features are also great forms of traditional marketing.