Sell Your Home Faster with These Tips
Preparing your home for potential buyers is important. Showing your home in its best light will help you sell your property faster. There’s also a very good chance that you’ll be able to sell it for a higher price!
Declutter – but keep it homey
Get rid of things that clutter your home. Put it in storage, sell it, give it away or put it in the garbage pile. After all, if you haven’t used it in over a year, chances are you never will. Remove big, bulky furniture that makes the room feel smaller than it actually is. Maybe you’ll replace it with smaller pieces, or just eliminate it altogether. Potential buyers should be able to envision what the home would look like if they were living in it. Make it as easy as possible for them to see themselves living there.
Give it a coat of fresh paint
Giving your walls a fresh coat of neutral paint will make the home seem lighter, brighter and even larger. Create a canvas that your potential buyers can imagine their possessions in. Also, if the canvas is neutral, it will be easier for the buyers to move in and use the rooms as is instead of having to paint over a bright green or purple wall.
Curb appeal matters
Curb appeal creates a great first impression. Did you know that most buyers make up their minds if they like the property in the first few minutes of arriving. Maybe your driveway needs a power wash, perhaps the windows need cleaning. Mow the lawn, plant some pretty flowers, tidy the garden. Every little bit helps when it comes to making your curb appeal shine.
Fix it and clean it
Make minor repairs to holes in the walls, broken doorknobs, or closet doors, cracked tiles, torn carpets, etc. No buyer wants to move in and have to make immediate repairs. Make sure you clean everything thoroughly. Get rid of soap scum, clean the tile and the grout, make your wood floors shine, hang fresh, new towels, make sure everything smells fresh and clean, don’t have dirty laundry in the laundry room, make the beds, pick up everything off the floor, clean the patio furniture… it will make the home more appealing.
Update the kitchen
The kitchen is the most valuable room in your house. If a buyer loves your kitchen they are more likely to buy it than if they do not. Maybe your cabinets can use a refacing. If you upgrade your countertops, it may be expensive, but it adds more value than it will cost. Clean off all the surfaces, put away clunky appliances, leave a bowl of fruit out. Make sure there are no dishes in the sink and make the whole kitchen sparkling clean from top to bottom.
Improve window treatments
Make sure your windows have nice blinds or curtains. Having none makes the home feel sterile and uninviting. You want the potential buyer to get that cozy feeling. Window treatments can make a world of difference. They don’t have to be expensive, but they should be there.
Make it smell beautiful
You will win over buyers with a beautiful smelling house. Bad smells are a complete turn off. Don’t just cover the bad smells. Actually get rid of them. Clean out drains, open a window and let some fresh air in. Rid the kitchen of cooking smells, get rid of furniture that smells like smoke, put clean bedding on the bed. Bake some cookies, brew a pot of coffee. And, while it might be impractical to bake fresh bread, cakes or brownies for every viewer that visits your home, you could perhaps brew some fresh coffee. Light a scented candle.
Conclusion
People usually looking to buy a home have a set of criteria. Things you can’t control is their budget, the neighborhood they want to live in, and things like school districts. But, what you can control are the little things outlined above to make your home as appealing as possible so you can sell it fast and for more money. All this will also make it a less stressful process. If you’re looking to list your home for sale, now is possibly the best time to do so! We can help. Give us a call today.
