While Overland Park is officially known as the gateway to Kansas City, the town is absolutely full of precious gems all its own. The town is loaded with ample gardens, stunning bluff views, immaculate walking trails, and fascinating museum attractions. The town is also known for its commitment to art, especially from local and regional artists.

These simple pleasures are just a few of the reasons that housing Overland Park is becoming increasingly desirable, especially for families. The average home value saw an 8% increase over the past year, making it an excellent time to sell your Overland Park home. If you're considering listing your home, here are the top five things you should really do before you consider yourself ready to sell.

Do Some Research on Your Local Market

While your listing agent will eventually provide you with the nitty-gritty on your local market, you should be doing your own preliminary research.

First of all, make sure you do some thorough online research on the value of your home. You can visit a number of quality sites to look at similar homes in your neighborhood to help approximate your house’s value. You'll want to look at obvious things like the number of beds and baths, square footage, and features. You may also want to do some deeper digging on recent sales in your neighborhood to find out things like how long the house was on the market.

Commit to Working with the Best

When choosing a real estate agent, don’t just settle for the first agent you make contact with. Modern technology allows you to gain access to a curated list of the top agents in Overland Park who have seen the most success in selling houses similar to yours.

Effective Agents is a website that utilizes a proprietary algorithm to analyze data on your home and provide you with a custom list of the best-performing realtors® who are most likely to see the highest success rate in selling your house. You can even choose to have them contact you directly if you’d like to save some time and effort.

Consider Staging

Staging has shown to be incredibly effective in helping potential buyers to envision themselves as the next owner of your home. While this doesn’t have to be full-out professional staging, simply adding some touches like a fully-set dining room table and some accent plants can give your home a leg up. Removing worn furniture and bringing in rental furniture can make all the difference in how buyers perceive your home.

Check your Lighting

Make sure that your home is light and bright in every room, and pay special attention to the entryway. Lighting can make a huge difference in rooms like the master suite, dining room, and family room. Consider adding accent lighting in places such as reading nooks that may require it.

Call Up a Handyman

Now is the time to invest in a handyman to fix the leaky sink or creaking door in your home. As the best realtors® in Overland Park will tell you, these small investments will pay off when you remove potential pain points that could turn off prospective buyers from making an offer on your home.

Find more on housing in Overland Park by registering on 913area, your free guide to the Overland Park area.