Tips on How You Can Prepare Your Home for a Sale
Preparing your home for sale can be a lengthy, strenuous process. Getting a home prepared to sell might look as simple as decluttering or hiring a professional stager or photographer. The process is more involved for others, which may include cosmetic updates, landscaping, and repairs. If you are only at the beginning of the process of selling your home, the following tips can attract buyers to secure a fast sale.
In this article, we will uncover some great tips to prepare your home for sale.
1. Put Your Focus on Curb Appeal
A home’s exterior is among the first things that will draw a potential buyer’s eye to your home when browsing for online listings. As a result, it is important to clean up the landscaping while making different improvements to the home’s curb appeal, which is an important step when preparing a home to sell.
Professional photos should be taken first before listing, and the house should be ready when this process is underway. All those who attend a showing will be seeing the home typically for the second time, as they have ideally already looked at it at least one other time online before showing up for the open house.
2. Exterior and Landscaping Cleanup
Landscaping can be a daunting task, but it never has to be. When you prepare a home for sale, it is always best to keep things as simple as possible. Clean up all the overgrowth, sweep off the front porch, get rid of mildew and mold, and make inexpensive changes that are impactful, like paint touch-ups. The focus should be to create an atmosphere that is approachable.
3. Exterior Issues Should be Addressed Before a Home Inspection
In certain areas of the U.S., home insurance can be difficult to obtain and expensive, real estate agents will want to ensure a home will show well for professional inspectors. When looking at a home, obvious issues like roof leaks or things that need to be mitigated before going to market. If your home is not brand-new, that is okay too. The home should be presented as well-maintained always, which is why it is important to how it not only appears but also how much it could be sold for.
4. Declutter and Clean Your Home
One of the more time-consuming aspects of prepping a house for sale is the cleaning and decluttering stage. This step, however, comes with a two-fold benefit. The home will be far more presentable to prospective buyers, and your belongings can be cut down before moving into the next home of your dreams. Purge, rid yourself of unwanted home items, or donate. Most homes are overfurnished anyway, so ridding yourself of the things that will add confusion to the floor plan in a photo is, in most cases, necessary.
5. Invest in a Deep Clean
Hiring a professional cleaning service is worth the money for some. The trained eye of a professional can spot dust and dirt that might have otherwise been missed in your space, but potential buyers may notice. Cleaning service rates will always vary depending on the size of your house, the amount of work that is required, and the location. Most homeowners should prepare themselves for a hefty payment on a deep clean.
6. Family Photos and Personal Items
Many realtors might recommend putting away family photos and personal items. Instead of ridding your home of all photos and making it appear sterile, the right amount of photos will paint the home in a good light as a base of love and liveliness by a family. In a home that has been over-staged or is too empty, buyers can think that they are being duped.
7. Make a List of Needed Repairs
If you are not sure where to begin or what repairs should be made, chat with your real estate agent. We recommend checking out a listing agent a couple of months before you are prepared to pull the trigger by a few weeks. Things that may add value to the property are where sellers will gain all the money spent on worthwhile repairs into the sales price. Avoiding necessary repairs might lead to prolonged credits and negotiations, which may slow the process down entirely.
The Bottom Line
One of the most important steps in preparing your home for a sale will involve getting your home prepared for an open house and simplifying the closing process. The steps involved might seem to rack up costs and can be time-consuming, but they are always worth the time and money in the end. A well-prepared home that is on the market for less time can net a higher return on investment. Even if you are not looking to sell your home, maintaining it and the property that it is on will pay off in the end.