Selling Your Home

Prepare your home to sell!

  1. Curb appeal. The outside of your house is the buyer’s first impression. Keep the grass mowed and trimmed. Cut back overgrowth. Remove large over grown bushes or trees that block the view of your home. Plant some blooming flowers. Store toys, bicycles, gardening equipment and the like out of sight. Apply a fresh coat of paint to the front door. Sweep the porch and the front walkway. Winter months are just as important…keep all sidewalks and driveway shoveled. Remove any summer items that do not belong.
  2. Clear out the clutter. If you don’t do anything else…this is most important! If your home has too much furniture and decorative pieces (which most homes do), overflowing closets, crowded kitchen and bathroom countertops or lots of family photos hung on the walls for display, potential buyers won’t be able to see your home. Start packing NOW. After all, you will be moving, so now is a good time to get a jump start on all the packing. Most sellers need to pack away ½ of all their belongings. You can store these full moving boxes neatly in the basement or garage. This will make your home appear bigger and brighter. Clutter does not sell!
  3. Clean. I know we don’t always have a lot of time to spring clean the entire house from top to bottom. But clean homes sell better, bottom line. If you don’t have the time or don’t particularly like to clean, hire a cleaning company to come in. It is worth the investment!
  4. The sense of smell. To eliminate bad smells, bathe your pets, change the cat litter box frequently, shampoo your carpets and furniture, empty trash cans, keep clean linens on the beds, place some plug-in air fresheners around the home. (The new Glade fan plug-in works great!) If you are a smoker, DO NOT smoke inside during the entire duration of your listing.
  5. Make all necessary repairs. Picky buyers (and most of them are) definitely will notice and likely magnify ~ minor maintenance problems you’ve ignored for months or even years. Leaky faucets, burned out light bulbs, windows that don’t open easily and the like should be fixed before you put your home on the market. Buyers want to purchase homes that have been well taken care of.
  6. Introduce lifestyle accessories. Set the dining room table with your best dishes. Put out your “only-for-company towels”. Make up the spare bed. Hang some fresh curtains. Put some logs in the fireplace. Open all drapes and window blinds to let the light in. Put on soft music. Use your imagination.
  7. Get the true buyer’s view. Walk up to your home and pretend you’ve never seen it before. What do you notice? How do you feel about what you see? Does the home seem inviting? Well-maintained? Would you want to buy this home? Your answer should be an enthusiastic yes! You may want to go to Open Houses and see how others have “staged” their homes to sell. What did you like and dislike about the homes you saw? Use this to critique your own home.

A house that “shines” and is “clutter free” will sell faster than its” un-kept” neighbor, even though both are stucturally well-maintained and very simular in design, size and layout.

 

If you are thinking about selling your home ~ I would love the opportunity to work with you. I understand that selling a home is more than just putting a sign in your front yard.

"It is about you, your family and hopes and dreams."

 

When you decide to sell your home, please contact me and let's get started!