Prepare Your Home to Sell
Are you looking to find out what exactly you need to do to prepare your home to sell? You’ve come to the right place, and the answer is easy! Paint, polish, clean & de-clutter. Just keep it simple.
Prepare your Home to Sell – Paint
Preparing to sell your home is already a stressful time. This is not the time to embark on any major renovations. The first step to prepare your home to sell is paint. If your home is need of a fresh coat of paint, interior or exterior, now is the time to take care of this. This can be a simple and easy weekend project. Remember, keep it simple. Neutral earth tones are best for this. keep the color pallet clean and light. The lighter a paint color, the larger the room will seem. This is not the time to show off your own personal taste, its about making your home appealing to the large number of people who be coming through your home and deciding if this will be their new home. Keeping the color palate neutral will make it easier for prospective buyers to envision their hot pink couch, or their orange and lime green area rug in the living room.
Polish
What do I mean by that? Just how it sounds. Anything that can be shined up, door knobs, cabinet door pulls, kick plates. Anything that can be touched up, holes in walls, a loose hinge on the door, even a window that doesn’t open correctly. Basically, anything that is broken, minor things of course, or things in need of a minor repair is a good idea to address to prepare your home to sell. Wood rot on a piece of molding? Replace it! Even if you have well maintained your home over the years, and there is nothing to your knowledge that is wrong, a minor defect in something can give the impression of a more serious problem.
The first impression of your home is the street view. When a prospective buyer pulls up to your home, they have already started the process of deciding if this is the home for them. The curb appeal and tidiness of your yard will make a lasting impression. Keep your lawn mowed and edged and pull those weeds!! No one wants to get the impression that a yard is full of weeds and will be constant work. We all know that a yard will be constant work, and that weeds are an inevitable act of nature and lets be honest, we all hate pulling weeds! But this is not the impression we want to give. There is no need to go crazy and re-landscape your entire yard, so work with what you have by keeping it neat and well manicured. If you would like to add in some potted plants to spruce it up, go for it!
Clean
Now this is the big one! Clean and de-clutter! this is a MUST and the most important step to prepare your home to sell! Once your house is on the market, you will have people coming into your home. Make it easy on your self, and do a big clean and de-clutter job before those photos are taken to share on the MLS, and then keep up with it. You may get very little notice on your showings, so if you keep your home show ready at all times, you will not have to stress out and go into cleaning hyper drive.
We already talked about keeping the outside of your home clean and tidy with the landscaping. But lets talk about your house for a minute. Did you just paint the exterior? If yes, great! lets move on. If not, that’s OK. Exterior painting is a bit harder and more costly than painting the interior. So if you didn’t just recently paint, I highly recommend power washing the exterior of your home, walkways and patio areas. It can make a dramatic difference in how your home looks.
Kitchens and bathrooms are the next big one. Clear off as much as possible from your kitchen counter tops. Keep it simple! Counter top space in a kitchen is something that there never seems to be enough of. Whatever you can live without being on your counter tops until your home sells, box it up and put it away, but not in your cabinets (more on that later). You want to give the illusion of space, and lots of it. You want prospective buyers to get comfortable in your kitchen, picturing themselves cooking in your kitchen for their family, or socializing with friends with a glass of wine while preparing dinner.
Bathroom counter space is just about as important. Keep your personal belongings, toothbrush, make up, hair brushes, etc., put away in the cabinet and out of sight. Keep it simple! Hang soap, hand towel, and maybe a candle.
De-Clutter
The last step to prepare your home to sell is to de-clutter. I would recommend renting a small storage unit to store unused items in. If that is not an option, as long as your garage is neat and organized, stacking up some moving would be just fine. If you have already purchased your new home, start moving some stuff. Closet and cabinet space is a hot commodity. The more space the better. Anything you can pack up from your kitchen cabinets and pantry, do it. We all have those kitchen gadgets and appliances that we don’t often use, its time to pack those up and get them out. If your cabinets are completely full and your counters are loaded with small appliances, it will give the impression that there is not enough storage space. Keep the cabinets organized. People will open your fridge and cabinets, so have it tidy.
If you are lacking closet space, bedrooms and hall closets, don’t feel bad, most homes are, there never seems to be enough. A good rule of thumb is to remove half of what is in your closets. Give the impression that your closets are large by not keeping too much in them.
As for your garage…time to clean it out. Toss it out, pack it up, or have a garage sale! Obviously you will still need to have your lawn equipment and tools, but make sure there enough space to walk around, and pull a car in.
Last but not least. Personal items, Family photos and items of high value, pack them up also. It is always a good idea to put away and secure your items of value such as jewelry, cash or other valuable items. Also, pack up and fragile items of sentimental value. You should never have anyone in your home who is not accompanied by a licensed Realtor to keep and eye on things, but accidents do happen, people trip and fall and sometimes things get broken. As far as family photos, again, you want prospective buyers to imagine themselves living in your home. So its best to remove most of your photos, and allow those buyers to picture their own photos on the walls!
Already Prepared Your Home to Sell?
If you have already prepared your home to sell and are ready to get your home sold, contact me today to get started!
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