Selling your home requires marketing your home to a wide array of potential buyers. Many realtors will suggest hiring a professional staging expert to help boost the appeal, but there are many simple fixes you can do on your own to assist in marketing your home. Here are our top 9 "must do's" before listing your home.
All clutter must go! This is the absolutely most important tip, and it's a vital step to allowing a potential buyer to imagine themselves living in the home. Remove everything from the kitchen counter- no spices, cookware, toaster etc., Remove knick knacks/ keep them to a minimum. Remove excess furniture. If you can live without it: get it out of the room! You want to remove your personality from the home so that the buyers can imagine themselves living there. (You're showing off the home, not your personal belongings, which, after all, are not for sale.) Cluttered or over packed rooms tell buyers that your home lacks storage space.
Part of what will make your home shine is the amount of storage available. If it's jam packed with junk, it may be difficult to tell how much space is available. So where are you putting all this stuff, now that you have decluttered your rooms and cleaned out your closets? Consider renting a storage space, or neatly boxing and storing your belongings in plastic bins in your basement.
Do you have a spare bedroom that serves as a catchall or storage? Move a desk in there, and set it up to look like a functional space. Buyers want functional spaces that they can see themselves using.
Adding table and floor lamps will help brighten up a home and make it more welcoming. Consider upping the wattage in existing lamps to add more light. Open blinds, lighten paint colors, clean windows.
An inexpensive way to give your home a facelift, is to give it a new coat of paint. Not only will your house seem cleaner and newer, the right shade can even make a space appear larger. Don't forget to stick to neutral colors. Certain buyers are turned off to buying a home based on personal style choices that they find objectionable.
After purging the home of all clutter, you can now think about adding a little style to strike a balance between clean and lived in. Little stylistic tweaks: group similar decorative items in threes (and keep them to a minimum). Consider adding fresh flowers, or seasonal arrangements to add some warmth to the home. Choose an accent color and keep it consistently throughout the home. Hang wall art, not family photos. Keep bedrooms and living spaces gender neutral by purchasing new linens and keeping decorations minimal.
The first thing a potential buyer will see is the outside of your house and that's why curb appeal is a huge factor. Spend some time outside and clean windows, add planters with plants in bloom and fix cracks in sidewalk. All of these things are inexpensive ways to make a great first impression before the buyers even enter the home. Power wash your walkways, hang easy to read house numbers, repaint or stain window trim, decks and porches and add a clean doormat.
Make sure you get your house sparkling clean. Keep toys, shoes, and all items off of the floor. Pay attention to moldy grout, windows, grimy baseboards, and dusty light fixtures. You can hire professionals to save on effort, or do it yourself to save on money.
Not everyone loves animals and many people suffer from allergies so beware of pet odors (and all other odors). If you have pets get all of your rugs steam cleaned and make sure you take out your garbage before any showings or open houses.