With professional growth opportunities, new development, plenty of outdoor opportunities, and raw energy leaping out of Irving, Texas, you might be considering cashing in your Irving home — and fast.

This Dallas suburb has recently morphed into an affordable gateway to the bustling Dallas-Fort Worth area. The city is rapidly emerging as a center of enterprise, with five Fortune 500 companies and more than 45 Fortune 1,000 businesses drawing in professionals from across the globe.

The area also boasts 80 parks, hiking trails, lakes, rivers, and a walkable river canal. That combo of bustling business and sought-after backyard adventure means it’s the perfect time for you to sell your home in Irving.

All that adds up to a place people want to be, and if you’re looking to sell your Irving home, these tips from local experts will show you exactly how to sell your home quickly and cash in on Irving’s steady climb into the spotlight.

1. Invest in upgrades that attract Irving professionals

If you’re a homeowner, you can cash in on local growth by upgrading your Irving home or condo to fit the needs of young professionals.

If you’ve lived in Irving long, you know it has recently become a humming community where professionals come to live, with easy access to the vibrant scenes of Dallas and Fort Worth at an affordable price and almost $3 billion in new investments expected to flood the Irving-Las Colinas area within 5 years.

“A lot of buyers locally and even buyers moving from another state are looking for space for working offices at home,” explains Lily Moore, a top real estate agent at

Irving’s Lily Moore Realty with more than a decade of home-selling experience. “Especially with so many people working from home in the last year, they want to have the extra space.”

If you’re a seller, you can lean on the surge of business professionals by adding features that professionals find valuable, such as designated work stations, an extra office, or a meeting-friendly nook.

2. Prepare your home to fly off the market fast in Irving

The Irving housing market is tight, and that means buyers are moving fast when they see a new listing pop up. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Irving-Plano-Dallas area has a 1 percent home sale vacancy rate. If you want to connect with sellers who are eager to buy, it’s important that your home is ready to go the second you list it.

“My advice to any seller is to get the house show-ready,” says Moore. “Buyers are willing to pay way over the listing price if the house is show and move-in ready. Especially in Irving, people are not looking for fixer-uppers. They’re looking for houses that are move-in ready, and if they do find those houses, people are willing to pay the price.”

To take advantage of the market and sell your Irving home fast, take care of any repairs, needed upgrades, and maintenance issues.

3. Reinforce your roof against Irving storms

If there’s one home feature that can hold up your home sale in Irving, it’s the roof. Because  North Texas is notorious for hail, roofs in the area can take a pounding. In fact, according to the Insurance Information Institute, 1.5 million properties were damaged by hail in the Lone Star State in 2020 — more than any other state in the nation.

If you want to sell your home in a hurry, you can avoid hold-ups by getting a roof assessment from a company you trust before you list your home.

“For homeowners, I typically recommend talking to a roofing company that’s trusted and honest in the area,” explains Moore. “Do that prior to putting the house on the market because if that’s flagged during the inspection then it gets to the homeowner having to call the insurance company. They send an adjuster. The adjuster may take another week or two, and that could delay the closing time.”

4. Give your home’s foundation a second look

Local sellers who want to avoid home inspection delays in Irving should take extra precautions and examine their house’s foundation. North Texas is home to unique clay soil that can lead to cracks, movement, or erosion underneath a piece of property. The best way to keep foundation concerns from dragging out a sale is to take a peek yourself, and ask a construction expert to check out your house if you see any signs of a shifting foundation.

“If you see any signs of foundation movement in your house, you can always contact a reliable foundation company to come and make an assessment, so you can always have something to show the potential buyers that you have already fixed that, or they don’t need to worry about it because you already have it taken care of,” suggests Moore.

5. Add outdoor amenities to take advantage of Irving sunshine

Irving is a sunny, dry location where you can enjoy outdoor activities throughout most of the year. According to the Irving Chamber of Commerce, Irving locals can bask in 233 days of sunshine on average per year.

That means savvy homeowners can crank up their home’s value by adding outdoor features, such as pools, decks, or barbeque pits. If you’re looking for quicker projects to add value, consider enhancing your outdoor space with patio furniture, outdoor lighting, or a temporary fire pit.

As a general rule, if you want to invest in your home but you aren’t sure whether or not the extra spend will be worth it, ask yourself: “Is this an addition that I will enjoy while I’m living here?” If that new outdoor feature is bringing joy to your life, it’s probably going to be just as valuable to the next family that moves in.

“What I always suggest to my clients, especially sellers, is if you’re going to do something in the house, do it when you live there and enjoy it,” adds Moore. “If you want to add a patio addition or a grill in the backyard, do things that you can enjoy when you’re living in the house, and that’s going to increase the value long-term. Just don’t do a lot of upgrading at the last minute because you’re moving out.”

And if that addition is a pool, you may see an even higher return than you realize.

“One of the features in North Texas that a lot of people are looking for now is a pool,” says Moore. “If you have a pool in your backyard, historically, an appraisal is going to give you an $18,000 to $20,000 dollar value, no matter how much you spend on the pool–that’s on paper. Right now, if you have a pool, there are people overbidding up to $100,000 just because they want to have the pool.”

6. Strategically upgrade your curb appeal

Although upgrading outdoor spaces can improve your home’s value, that doesn’t necessarily mean laying out a full lawn in the Texas heat. Instead, you may want to enhance fixed surfaces and sprinkle in shrubs or trees that grow well locally. Here are a few native plants and trees that grow in the Irving area:

• Autumn sage
• Coneflower
• Wax myrtle
• Red yucca
• Bur oak
• Texas ash

Bryan Bedoy, COO of Abundance Landscape in Irving, suggests updating concrete, brick work, and lighting to highlight vibrant colors in plants, shrubs, and trees. He says the best way for homeowners to up their curb appeal is to add, “retaining walls with lighting features in them to create a more elegant look to their home, along with exquisite plants like spiral pines, or Cypress pines with magnolia trees.”

7. Work with top experts who know the Irving market

Irving properties are consistently selling at or above their listing price. According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI), houses in the Dallas-Plano-Irving area are selling for 48% higher prices than just 5 years ago. With homes in high demand, buyers in the area often fork out even more than the house’s appraised value.

Take time to find a real estate expert you can trust. Read reviews, ask questions, and poll your friends who have sold their homes in the area. By finding a top real estate agent you can trust, you’ll be able to connect with buyers faster, and maximize the price you can get for your Irving home!