Preparing Your Home for a Sale
There is more to selling a home than simply calling a real estate agent, setting up an open house and waiting for people show up. Just like any product that is for sale, you need to spend some time thinking about packaging and design. A buyer will not purchase something that isn’t visually appealing.
For home sales, this means staging. You need to get your home looking its absolute best. The first step is to work on your home’s curb appeal. What will buyers see when they first pull up to the property? Trim back shrubs, do some landscaping, put in some flowers and make sure the walkways and porch are clean. If your home needs a fresh coat of paint, this is the time to do it.
A nice exterior might get people interested in the house, but, in order to sell, the inside needs to be even more impressive. To start, clean. Scrub areas that are normally only reserved for spring cleaning. You want your home to shine. The next step is to clear out all of the clutter. Organize what you need to keep for right now, and stick everything else into storage. Move out anything that does not need to be there. This includes excess furniture. Sometimes taking out a piece or two can give a smaller room a more open feeling.
At the same time, start removing personal affects from view. Potential buyers want to see themselves in the home. That can’t happen if you have family portraits on the wall. Repaint the walls neutral colors. Light colors will make small rooms seem more spacious. Be sure to repair any holes in the wall before painting.
Clean out and reorganize cabinets, shelves, and drawers. Put back only what you will need before the move, making cabinets seem more spacious. Use closet organizers to show off the space available in closets. Buyers want to open closet doors, kitchen cabinets, and other storage areas to get a sense of the amount of room they will have available if they buy your house.
Put up clean hand towels and washcloths up in the bathroom. Put a few small jars of potpourri in out of the way places for fresher air. Putting in a double headed or massaging showerhead can make any bathroom more appealing. Make sure shampoo bottles, soap, and other personal hygiene products are put out of sight.
Staging a home only takes a week, at most, but it is the only way to get your home ready for a sale. Learn to look at your house from a buyer’s perspective. If you were just seeing the property for the first time, would you buy it? What aspects of the home do you like the best? Play to those areas while staging. If you are having a difficult time viewing the house as a buyer would, bring in an impartial friend or family member to help you locate areas that need more work. If you are selling your home soon, and do not have the time to scrub and stage, consider hiring a cleaning service to make your home sparkle and a staging professional to help you finish preparing your home for a sale.