Once your decision to sell is made, there are preparation steps to take that will make your home stand out among the competition. There are three things that come into play when buyers are looking at a home:
- Location
- Price
- Features and Condition
When reading the rest of this article, keep these three things in mind because you need to look at your home as if you were considering buying it to make sure that your home shows well.
Understand the Market
Your Full Service Agent™ will provide you a complete market analysis of your neighborhood showing current market activity. Based on your needs, you need to know specific statistics to ensure that you understand what to expect when your house is on the market – you don’t want any surprises.
In addition, Your Full Service Agent™ will tell you about the current market for the area around your home. Different areas within a city, even just 5 or 10 miles away from your home, can have different market conditions. You will be informed about the overall market conditions as well as the specific area in which you currently live. What happens in real estate markets in other parts of the country may not be what is happening here.
Knowing how Your Full Service Agent™ will market your property and what data they will provide while your home is on the market is instrumental in keeping tabs on the market. Statistics will provide you information to use to make further decisions as needed during the time your home is listed for sale.
Remove Clutter and Clean
Remember when you purchased your home. What did you notice about your home’s layout and features that made you decide to make an offer? These are the items that will help you sell your home now.
Clutter hides in plain sight everywhere: counters, the pantry, closets, bathrooms, cabinets and drawers. When selling your home, minimize as much as possible. This includes furniture and home décor as well. Less can provide a great positive impact on most spaces. If you can’t part with donating or selling the items you determine to remove from your living space while your home is listed for sale, rent a storage unit and remove as much as possible from your home to make it feel open and inviting.
Take the time to clean everything inside – the deeper the clean the more inviting and appealing your home will be to prospective buyers. Scrub corners of the kitchen and bathrooms, move the refrigerator, clean out all appliances, wipe off counters, wash the windows and clean every fixture in your home. Buff and polish floors and clean all window coverings.
Your home’s exterior is the first impression that a prospective buyer will see. Don’t forget to head outside and clean the gutters, driveway, paint, weed the flower beds (if it is off season), trim bushes and trees, bring in some in season plants, clean out garages and sheds, and rake leaves if needed.
Now Look at Your Home
With an uncluttered and clean home, you can take a new look at the house. From the outside of the house, what do you see first? Is that what you want a prospective buyer to see? As you come up the walk, what catches your eye? When you walk in, how does it feel? What do you notice?
From curb appeal to the feeling you get when coming into your home, you want to experience what a prospective buyer will see and feel. Anything that you don’t like at this point, investigate if and how it can be changed and updated.
Updates and Repairs
In addition to the items you would want improved with your potential buyer hat on, there may be things that you need to repair to attract buyers. Anything from grout in the bathrooms to removing dead plants from the yard are included in this step.
Painting walls is a very cost effective way to give your home a face lift. As our client, HomeServices will provide you access to companies that can assist you with painting, repairs, and updates.
Whatever you choose not to update or repair turns into a bargaining chip in the negotiation process when you receive offers.
Show It to Sell It
Your Full Service Agent™ will hold open houses and create a virtual tour of your home. In addition to the open houses and internet information, your home has to be ready to show at a moments notice.
Open blinds and curtains and keep everything put away. Pets that stay at home while you are at work are something that showing agents need to know about. Leave instructions! It is better, if possible, to have your pets out of your home for any showing.