You know what they say: you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Preparing your home for sale is hard work, but do it right and you’ll reap the rewards of your efforts in your bank account.
:
Step 1 – De-cluttering and De-personalizing
We all have too much stuff, and too much stuff can be distracting to potential Buyers. When preparing your home for sale, you want to eliminate as much clutter as possible—books, knick knacks, storage boxes, off-season clothes, your giant shoe collection, etc. It’s also important to neutralize your space as much as possible so that potential Buyers can see themselves living in your home—and that means putting away personal photos, mementos and collections.
Step 2 – Cleaning
Think of the cleaning you need to do to prepare your home for sale as what you’d expect in a hotel room. Wash the baseboards, remove the cobwebs from the ceiling, clean inside your fridge and oven, clean inside your closets and kitchen cupboards, dust under your stuff and have the carpets professionally cleaned. Sadly, the cleaning won’t stop when your house goes on the market–every day, you’ll need to make your bed, do the dishes, wash the floors and clean up after the kids.
Step 3 – Staging
Staging involves optimizing the use, look and feel of every room in your home. It might mean converting your home office to a third bedroom, adding, removing or re-arranging furniture, painting the walls, replacing light fixtures or investing in some fluffy towels for the guest bathroom. Work with your REALTOR, making your home appeal to the greatest number of Buyers doesn’t have to be expensive, but it will take time. But remember: the effort you put into transforming your home will impact how long it takes your home to sell and of course, the price you get.
Step 4 – Repairs and Renovations
Let’s face it, we all have a tendency to procrastinate fixing the little stuff – the leaky faucet, the peeling wallpaper, the dent in the kitchen cabinets, the loose gutters. Bringing in a handyman to complete all those little fixes will go a long way to communicating to potential Buyers that your home has been well-maintained (and you’ll wonder why you put it off so long). And make sure there are no burnt out light bulbs!
Step 5 – Pre-listing home inspection
If you own a house, completing a pre-listing home inspection before you put your house on the market will help you identify any issues with the home that might be objections for Buyers. For example: the home inspector may determine that your house needs a new roof. Armed with that information, you can choose to either
a) fix the roof before putting the house up for sale, or b) factor it into your asking price. Either way, having accurate information puts you in control of how the deficiencies in your house will affect the price you get for the house.
If you’re pricing your home for a bidding war, making the pre-listing home inspection available to Buyers will encourage them to make offers.
