Prepare to Sell Your Home

Selling your home can be stressful for even the most experienced home owners. Whether you are a first-time seller or a seasoned pro, properly preparing your home before you put it on the market can make your life – and the process – a whole lot easier. To help you in this endeavor, here are some tips you can take to get your house market-ready.

Tips for Selling Your Home

Preparing to sell your home is about more than just finding a real estate agent or listing your home on a real estate website like Zillow. Smart homeowners know that this is important, but is just a small part of the process.

Curbside Appeal

When potential buyers view your house for the first time, the first thing they tend to see is the outside of the home. Whether the interested party gets their first impression of your property from a picture on a website or in person, it is important that they are not turned off prior to even entering your humble abode.

Freshening up your home’s curbside appeal is often inexpensive and not only makes your property more appealing, but can add to its value as well. Simple steps, such as routine lawn maintenance, touching up paint, planting some flowers along walkways, and replacing old hardware on doors are all easy ways to up the wow factor of that first impression.

If your home is older or has been neglected over the years, you may want to consider repainting the exterior, pressure cleaning your driveway/walkways, and having a professional touch-up any eyesores on the roof.

Use Your Senses

Often when homeowners prepare their property to sell it, they focus on how the house looks. While that is certainly an important part aspect (arguably the most important), you should also be aware of your olfactory senses – that is, your sense of smell. This is particularly true for homeowners who have pets in the house.

The same goes for cooking smells and incense. While you might enjoy them, potential buyers may be turned off by something as simple as roasted garlic, onions or even fried bacon. Burning sage might not just scare away evil spirits – it could also chase away those buyers!

Attention to Detail

Small things tend to add up in any situation, and real estate deals are no exception. Always be sure to pay attention to the small things around your home. On the interior, look for peeling paint and old hardware on doors, kitchen cabinets and drawers. Sometimes cleaning knobs and pulls is enough to make them shine again. If not, investing in new hardware is a smart move.

Dusting and giving your home a deep clean is important too. A clean carpet not only smells great, but looks good and can even brighten a room and give it a clean feel. Opening drapes and curtains to let light in makes the home seem more spacious and airy. Placing a few potted plants here and there (even flowers) makes the home more cozy, and savvy home sellers will use them to draw attention to features in the home. For example, if you have a great bay window, adding a pop of color from flowers can draw interested buyers attention to the window.

Finally, just as certain design and decor elements can highlight your homes selling points, poor choices can detract from them. Over-sized furniture in small rooms, knick-knacks and even family photos are all distractions and add a negative effect to a house viewing. If need be, box these items up and move them (and bulky furniture) to a storage unit. You would be surprised how large of an impact this can have when a real estate agent shows your home!

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