When it comes time to sell your vacation home, it’s essential to do a little preparation before you, and your real estate agent put it on the market. By taking a short amount of time now, you’ll not only help your property sell faster, but you’ll also ensure that you get the best possible offer for it.

To help you prepare your home, we’ve put together ten easy steps to follow to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. Read-on to discover how to sell a vacation home.

If you’re considering selling your cabin or cottage, be sure to also explore our article on the top five things to consider beforehand.

Step #1: Understand the Tax Implications

Before you do anything, please make sure that you fully understand the tax implications of selling your vacation home.

While Canada does not have any capital gains tax on selling your principal residence, there is a tax on selling any secondary home. In the United States, similar exemptions apply to primary residences depending upon the length of time you have owned and lived-in the home. However, as with most things tax-related, the laws are nuanced.

Typically, though, you should expect to have a tax bill at the end for a portion of the difference between what you originally paid for the property and the amount for which you sell it. Sometimes it may be wiser from a tax perspective to wait to sell or even keep the property. So, before you decide to sell a vacation home, consider a consultation with a tax lawyer to make sure that you won’t have too hefty of a tax bill at the end of the year!

Step #2: Tidy The House

Once you’ve decided that making the sale makes sense from a tax perspective, the next step is to start preparing your home for sale. Before doing anything significant, clean up the house. Sweep the floors, clean the garage, and make sure that the interior looks neat. In some of the other steps, we’ll focus more on particular sections of the house, but for right now, your primary focus should be doing a first-pass through the property to straighten things up. During this process, make sure the floors and bathrooms are clean. Keep the counter tops free of appliances as well.

If your vacation property has been vacant for a little while, sometimes there can be less-than-desirable odours that will turn off prospective buyers. This tip is a simple one, but it is vital. Buy a few air fresheners and make sure that your home smells good when people walk into it. Typically, the kind of air fresheners that you plug in and diffuse over a longer duration of time work the best in these types of situations.

Step #3: Boost Your Vacation Home’s Curb Appeal

Curb appeal is vital for ensuring that you will receive more money for your home and that it will sell faster. Having a higher curb appeal can result in a price increase of up to 12%.

While this term is subjective, there are a couple of techniques that will wow potential buyers and make them fall in love with your home. Cut the grass. Trim your bushes and hedges. Ensure the flower beds are well-manicured and don’t have dead plants in them. Tidy up the exterior, mostly. The goal is to have a potential buyer drive up to your house and think, “wow, this is a well-kept place that is likely to be a great investment!”

Just look at these before and after pictures to better understand the difference landscaping makes on your home’s curb appeal:

If you have enough time, lights work wonders for curb appeal. Porch lights and other outdoor lighting methods make your vacation home pop and make it stand out among the rest.

Whether your prospective buyers are looking at this property for an investment, rental income, or to use as their second home, they’re going to want something that looks nice. The first impression of quality curb appeal will go along way to ensure they feel that way!

Step #4: Optimize Lighting

Lighting is one of the most crucial selling features of a home. Coldwell-Banker puts it bluntly, “a dark room is an immediate turn-off to buyers.“

With vacation homes, people want places that will make them feel good and be relaxing. Or, they want a place that they can rent out quickly. Either way, buyers will wish to have bright rooms that have lots of light.

If you have some burned-out bulbs, now’s the time to fix them. If you have some windows that need washing or you need to replace them, consider doing so. Since blinds and lighting are so intricately related, some vacation homeowners will also take this opportunity to upgrade their window blinds.

Ideally, you would make your home feel bright and open. Buyers, especially prospective vacation homeowners, want to feel happy and relaxed in their spaces.

Step #5: Perform Any Necessary Repairs

Buyers like to have turnkey properties. Whether they’re looking at it as an investment or a place to spend part of their life in, most buyers want to be able to enjoy the property from day one. If the home needs repairs, it quickly gives the impression that buyers will need to do work before renting it out or enjoying the home themselves.

Therefore, make sure that you spend some time fixing things up. This step doesn’t just refer to the significant issues (like a broken toilet, for example). Repair the little problems as well. Squeaky doors, chips in the wall, and peeling paint are all fantastic candidates for quick fixes. Even if you don’t wind up renovating the entire house, fixing these little things will help make the buyer feel like the property was in good hands.

Step #6: Depersonalize Your Home

When prospective buyers visit your home, they need to be able to envision themselves living there.

If they see personal photographs, souvenirs, and other personal items lying around, it becomes harder for them to envision the space as theirs. Instead of thinking about how amazing owning your vacation home would be, they’ll instead see a photo of your smiling family from five years ago and think, “I can’t take this place away from this happy family!”

Depersonalization also refers to removing decor and items that are less mainstream. Your home should appeal to as many people as possible. Designs like wood panelling or unique paint colours might appeal to you, but they may not appeal to the broader population. Before you sell a vacation home, you may wish to remove these personal preferences in favour of mainstream colours, textures, and so on.

Step #7: Optimize the Bathroom And Kitchen

Bathrooms and kitchens are focal points for most homes. Of all the different renovation types, most real estate agents know that kitchens have the highest return on investment.

Families bond, make delicious food and have some of their most memorable moments in and around the kitchen. As such, it is one of the essential rooms in the entire house for receiving an offer for top dollar. Bathrooms have similar statistics.

For your kitchen, ensure that the countertops are clean. There should be no clutter on them. Make sure that your stove and fridge are clean. If you have an island, declutter it as well. Your goal is to make your kitchen feel bright and inviting. It should be devoid of dirt, dust, and grease that occur with everyday life.

Similarly, for your bathrooms, make sure the toilets and showers are clean. You should wash the sinks as well. Furthermore, any bathroom mirrors need cleaning to ensure they shine and sparkle. One neat trick is to make your bathroom feel like a spa. Put some nice towels in there and some different bath soaps. Showcase what a relaxing place the tub can be. Buyers who are looking to buy your property as a relaxing getaway will appreciate that touch!

Step #8: Stage Your Home

Some sellers hire professional staging companies to come in with furniture pieces and lay them out in the home. While a staging company will most certainly give your home a professional touch, you don’t necessarily need to hire a staging business to have the same effect.

The idea behind staging is that it not only makes each room look good, but it also gives each room a purpose.

You walk into the wide-open space, see the couches, and think, “yep, this is a living room.” Then when you get to the room in the corner, you observe the desk sitting there and realize that’s a den, for example. By properly staging your vacation home, you can avoid this confusion.

Even if you don’t hire a professional staging company, you should consider staging your vacation home yourself. To do this, simply take the furniture you have and move it around so that each room looks very defined and clean. For example, if you have a newborn during your trips to your vacation property and the crib is in your bedroom, put it in the spare room instead. That way, you shift the focus of the buyer from “this room has a crib and a bed, what is it supposed to be?” to “wow, this house has a spare room that I can use for a nursery or whatever else I want!”

Don’t leave furniture cluttered, dirty, or in a layout that wouldn’t make immediate sense to anyone walking through your home! Instead, hire a professional staging company or do the best you can to stage it yourself.

Step #9: Walk Through Your Home Like A Buyer

Pretend that you are interested in purchasing your property. After all, at one point, you liked it enough to put in an offer on it! Take a walk through your home and analyze it objectively. Is there anything left that you would like to change? Is there anything left that would make you think twice about putting in an exceptional offer?
If there are things still left that don’t feel right, trust your instinct, and correct those. Maybe you notice that the lighting doesn’t feel right or isn’t in line with modern trends. If it’s relatively easy to adjust, that might be a candidate for an upgrade. Even though it might be exceptionally challenging, try and detach yourself emotionally as much from the home as you can and focus on what your instinct is telling you needs fixing.

Step #10: List Your Home During the Busy Season

In order to maximize the number of potential buyers, list your home during the busy season. Common sense dictates that the more people viewing your property, the greater likelihood it will sell. Not only will you increase the pool of potential buyers, but you will also have their attention during a time in which they are more likely to make a purchasing decision. By listing your property during the busy season, you can take advantage of the “vacation high” being experienced by potential buyers. Such buyers, motivated to maintain their vacation high, will be better able to envision the benefits of owning a vacation home in one of their favorite destinations. Be sure to also speak with an experienced real estate agent to determine the best time of year to sell.

How to Sell a Vacation Home – Summary

None of these steps are difficult to implement, and most aren’t even that time-consuming. Yet, each one will have a substantial impact on the time it takes to sell a vacation home as well as the amount of money you will receive for it.

To recap, first understand the tax implications of your sale. Given that sales of second homes are typically subject to capital gains taxes, you’ll want to factor this aspect into any plans that you make. Next, focus on some of the apparent selling factors of your home – curb appeal, cleanliness, and lighting optimization. Each one of these is vital to receive the best offer for your property.

Next, you’ll want to perform any necessary repairs. If there are things in your vacation home that you’ve been living with that are less than ideal, correct that today! Cracked driveways, holes in walls, and other problems need repair before placing the home on the market. Focus, too, on your home’s smell and buy some candles or air fresheners. You’ll also want to depersonalize your home so that way a buyer can envision themselves in your vacation property and not you.  After that, go back to the bathrooms and kitchens. Focus on those since they have a high ROI when it comes to selling houses.

Stage your home! Even if you don’t retain the services of a professional staging company, take the time to arrange the furniture in each of your rooms so that it gives the room clarity and makes it look aesthetically pleasing.

Before listing your property, do a final walk through of your property, thinking like a buyer. Anything that you see wrong, you should trust your instinct and fix it!

Finally, list your vacation home for sale during the busy season in order to maximize the chances of completing a sale.

Selling a vacation home might seem daunting at first, but with these ten steps, you’ll prepare your house for sale in no time!

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What is Staging all About?

Home staging is the process of increasing your home value by doing minor changes to the décor, furniture and appearance. Practically, it involves cleaning the home, removing the clutter, improving the landscaping, painting a room or two, adding plants, changing furniture and buying some unique decorations to sparkle buyers’ attention.

Staging is not decorating, but more like depersonalizing your house. While it can be done all by yourself, you can also hire a home stager to help you out. If you want to save some money and do-it-yourself, you can stage your vacation home for sale using these 7 important tips. Check them out below and get your home ready for sale in 2020 and beyond!

7 Tips on Staging Your Vacation Home for Sale

1. Make the Interiors Look Larger by Cutting out Decorations

Vacation home buyers love to see de-cluttered homes that they can decorate as they see fit. They want to have as much space as possible so they feel relaxed and forget about the busyness of life in the big city. A surefire way to increase the appeal of your home is to ensure it looks de-cluttered and large. For that, you want to remove any needless decorations.

Get rid of everything that might communicate potential buyers that you are the owner of the house. Buyers need to be able to picture themselves in your home.

You should have zero personal decorations, but only add some stylish decorations featuring motifs that trigger relaxation and well-being. For example, a landscape painting or a cheap figurative art piece can enhance the appeal of a room without adding any tint of personalization.

2. Hire a Cleaning Company

When selling a vacation home, it is important to ensure that it looks clean and elegant. If you haven’t visited it in months its even more important to undergo a thorough cleaning beforehand. When potential buyers walk into a home, they want to see a spotless home with no visible signs of recent use.

That’s why it’s always a great idea to hire a professional house cleaning company that can clean your home and make it look exceptional, even if you’re not there. They can clean the backyard, front garden, patios, interior, and even your pool.

3. Create a Unique Bedroom Buyers will Love

The bedroom might be the single most important room for married couples, especially if they want to leave their kids behind when going on vacation. All vacationers want to spend quality time together, including relaxing in the bedroom reading a book, watching TV and sleeping.

The best way to ensure that they will enjoy a relaxing holiday and forget about all of their worries is to upgrade the bedroom. Make your bedroom look as appealing as possible by investing in plush pillows, new bedding and high-quality comforters.

4. Entice Potential Buyers with a Gorgeous Dining Room Table

Most of the time, sellers forger that potential buyers need to be enticed. In order to make a successful sale, you need to ensure that the centerpiece of your home, which is the dining table, looks perfect. Buyers notice everything, including those unopened letters or toys on the dining table.

Put out the best china on the table, add centerpieces, bring in some wine glasses & wine and even decorate it with candles. If you have an outdoor dining table, you can enhance it with bread baskets, flower vases and wine buckets.

After you have finished the presentation, spend some time at the dining table with your guests and drink some good wine. You might just convince them on the spot to buy your vacation home!

5. Patch and Repair

During the home staging process, you need to invest some time and energy into repairing your vacation home. Considering that you may not spend a lot of time in your vacation home, you might not be aware of all the cracks, holes, nicks and scratches inside or outside of it.

Start by removing any scuffs from the walls and continue moving around using caulk, paint, spackle and good old TLC to ensure your property looks at its best.

6. Focus on Being Fresh

Never overemphasize your home décor and try not to overwhelm your visitors with too many features and add-ons. Instead, keep things fresh and leverage the power of well-placed flowers and plants. Space out a few plants and flowers in order to avoid clutter and to maximize space.

A practical thing you can do is to place a vase of fresh flowers right on your kitchen table or dining table. You can also add a few potted plants in your living room, bedroom or bathroom. However, if you are not within close proximity of the location or you don’t have time to prepare for the visit, you can always use fake plants as a replacement.

Another important aspect of being fresh is that there are no odors in the home. Make sure there are no lingering smells that might trigger certain negative feelings in your guests. Of course, the trash bin should be emptied and the sink should have no dirty dishes in it. If you feel a subtle scent inside your home, you can use a small scented plug-in that smells of lilies, frangipani or primrose to cover it.

7. Rearrange the Furniture

Lastly, you can dramatically boost the appeal of your vacation home if you rearrange the furniture in such a way so that there is as much walkable, open space as possible. By putting the furniture together, you’ll not only maximize space and make the home look bigger, but you’ll also enable the buyers to better visualize each piece of furniture.

Ensure that you throw away or hide damaged, insignificant furniture pieces, and only keep those that can leave a good first impression.

Staging your vacation home for sale using these tips will no doubt improve your chances of a successful sale. Be sure to also check out our other resources for sellers of vacation homes here.

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Selling a cabin or cottage has its own unique set of challenges, not to mention the emotional aspect of selling. You probably have many feelings associated with the place. Perhaps you used to go there on weekends but now you can’t. Or, maybe it was your summer home that you spent quite a bit of time in, but now you can’t due to moving out of state or province. Cabins and cottages usually have fond memories associated with them.

The attachment felt towards this “second home” is what makes selling a cabin so tricky. Many individuals make mistakes during the sales process, or have incorrect assumptions. Either of these can lead to a less than ideal result. If you are looking at selling your cabin or cottage, here are five things you need to do before you list your beloved second home.

Check the Tax Implications of Selling a Cabin

Please note that the following advice is not legal advice. You should always consult with an accountant and lawyer to understand the implications for your particular situation.

Depending on what your principal residence is and how you are selling the property, there may be significant tax implications if you sell your cabin.

Generally speaking, you will owe capital gains tax on the difference between the selling price and the “adjusted cost basis” or ACB.

The ACB is essentially the purchase price of your home plus the value of any improvements and additions you make to it.

If you have to repair the stove, that will not accrue towards your ACB. However, if you add another bedroom, that does. Put another way, if the renovation or repair is fixing an existing problem, it doesn’t go towards the ACB, but if it is adding value to the home, then it does.

There are ways around paying this capital gains tax. One way is to gift the home to your spouse. Another way is through the principal residence exemption. While many people think the term “principal residence” means that you live in the home for the majority of the year, this definition is not entirely correct. In the United States, the IRS defines primary residence as somewhere that you lived for at least two of the five years prior to the sale. So, if you lived at your cabin for any two years out of the previous five, it could still qualify for the exemption. In Canada, the CRA has taken the view that a second home can be a principal residence, so long as you live in it at some point throughout the year, and its primary reason is not income (i.e. you are not renting it out regularly). If you haven’t been renting out your cottage or cabin, you may be able to designate it as your principal residence for the tax year of sale and avoid the capital gains tax.

Of course, there are some nuances with these tax rules. Consult with an accountant and lawyer to make sure you know what’s right for your situation. However, whether you need to elect your cabin or cottage as the principal residence or pay capital gains tax, there will be tax issues to consider when selling the property.

Perform Repairs Before Selling a Cabin

Many people who are selling their cabins are selling them after having owned them for a decade or more. During this time, there will invariably be repairs needed. If you’re like most people, then some repairs you might elect not to perform. For example, that dent in the wall might not bother you that much. Or you might know that the stove is older, but it still works.

Unfortunately, when it comes to selling, buyers want something turn-key. They want a cottage they can enjoy immediately. If a potential buyer walks into your place and thinks that they’ll have to put in thousands of dollars and months of repair work to be able to live in your cottage, then they will be turned off and not make an offer. You have a higher likelihood of receiving the offer you want if you perform all necessary repairs and upgrades before putting it on the market.

Make Your Cabin Look Like A Resort

Cain buyers are different than regular homebuyers. People looking for cabins and cottages want a retreat. They want a place that they can go and be away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. The best way you can give them that feeling is to make them think they’re entering a resort.

Think of the way hotels decorate their interior. The towels are clean and folded perfectly. The bed has some decorative pillows on it. Of course, the curtains are open just enough to let in the right amount of light. You want someone to feel relaxed once they see your cabin. The best way to do that is to make them feel like they are entering a resort.

De-Personalize Your Cabin

While you might want to see that old family photo on the nightstand, it will remind buyers that you own the cabin. Buyers must be able to see themselves relaxing in your property. It’s hard to do that if there are a bunch of personal keepsakes around. Generally, it is advisable to remove all of these things during the photos and showings. That way, they can see themselves having fun in your cabin or cottage, and be more likely to put in an offer.

Hire A Realtor to Sell Your Cabin

While it might be tempting not to pay a commission and try to facilitate the sale yourself, that approach typically results in a significantly lower sales price.

Experienced real estate professionals know how to market your home correctly and have an extensive network that they can tap to find the right buyer for your cabin.

Do a little bit of research online and find a top-rated agent who will listen to your goals. An agent will be able to guide you through the sales process smoothly and can even make suggestions concerning staging, repairs, and renovations.

Pro Tip: a good realtor will know the importance of having the following information readily available:

• Property survey (rural boundaries are not always well defined)
• List of major renovations (interior and exterior)
• Water quality test results
• Septic tank and water pump details
• Moveable property inclusions and exclusions (watercraft, ATV’s etc.)

With a Few Initial Steps, Selling a Cabin or Cottage is Fairly Straightforward

Selling a cabin or cottage is a fairly straightforward process. Once you verify the tax implications of the sale, fix and clean up the cabin, and hire a realtor, the actual process of listing the place is the work of the realtor. If you are thinking of selling your cabin, start preparing now so that you will be able to sell your second home at the highest price and in the lowest amount of time!

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