Are you planning to sell your house and not yet sure how to get the best price on the market? Here are some tips and tricks to prepare your house for potential buyers.
Increase Your Curb Appeal
Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and when potential buyers walk up to your home, you’ve got less than a minute to impress them. How your home looks on the outside will set the tone for the rest of their impresion.
If buyers feel your home is nicely maintained at the start, they’ll be more likely to look past less desirable finishes in the interior. The opposite might also be true.
Even simple things like “decluttering” your landscaping, adding fresh mulch, changing the light fixture, and painting the door and trim can go a long way towards making your home look picture perfect.
- Make sure the area around and including your front door is painted nicely (and caulked if necessary) or washed with a high-pressure hose if brick/stone.
- Sweep up and consider a nice entry door mat.
- Check your entry light. Is it old dingy and hanging loosely? Look for deals on new light fixtures online and at discount stores.
- Pull all weeds. It is easy and does make a difference.
- If you have rock or mulch areas that look dirty and messy, purchase a few bags of matching material from hardware or landscaping stores.
- If patches of missing grass, place some seeding packs.
Clear the Clutter and Clean Like You’ve Never Cleaned Before
This is one of those no-brainers: A messy and/or dirty home is a big turnoff and suggests to buyers that you haven’t kept up the place. And yet, for some mind-boggling reason, homeowners still put their places up for sale with rooms looking like they have never been cleaned.
You don’t have to get rid of everything, but decluttering as much as possible will help your rooms look bigger. This includes clearing the clutter hiding in your closets, your bathroom cabinets, kitchen cabinets, and your pantry—because buyers will look! Renting a storage unit could be the best return on investment when selling your house.
Depersonalize and Modernize the Place
You might have a great collection of Russian dolls, movie posters, or vintage family photographs to display, but buyers don’t want to see them. You’re better off making the place as much of a blank slate as possible, so potential buyers could actually see themselves living there instead of seeing you everywhere. (In fact, you want to remove yourself from the picture so much that you should leave the property—and take any pets with you—when it’s being shown.)
This means keeping everything as neutral as possible: Paint boldly colored walls beige or off-white, take down personal photos, and remove any and all quirky touches that could make homebuyers look elsewhere. (Yes, even that clever shower curtain.)
Paint actually might be the home seller’s best friend—and you don’t even have to do it for every wall (unless your walls are painted in uncommon colors). Paint trim white, advises interior designer Victoria Solomon, because wood trim is “very 1970s” and this is a pretty low-cost fix.
Sight: Remove clutter and make home a showcase more than a living space
Smell: After detoxing and decluttering space work on smell/scent. Cleaning is key to remove pet odors, food/cooking smells, etc. Sound: Is your home on a busy street or quiet? Some background music might be helpful
Taste: A fresh bowl of fruit gives a feeling of freshness.
Touch: Remove the dust and add some fresh flowers.
Pay Attention to the Fine Details
Finally, don’t ignore the most obvious buyer turn-offs and the things a home inspector would ding you for (including the small things like a light not working). Cosmetic touch-ups like covering up small holes in walls or changing the hardware on kitchen cabinets are easy and inexpensive. Try to look at every room with a critical eye.
Also, good photography will make your home look its best in online listings. Contact us for some excellent photography advice for capturing every room of your home and showcasing it in the best light.
