How to Prepare Your Home for Sale

How to Prepare Your Home for Sale

When the times comes to sell your home there are several preparations you should make if you want to get top dollar, This list of top tips to sell your home quickly and for the most money is a great place to start!


De-clutter: The first thing you will need to do, is de-clutter your home. It can be difficult for buyers to see past too much furniture and items. When buyers walk into a home, they need to be able to imagine their lives there. You want them to start picturing where they would put their furniture, and how they would decorate, and if there is too much in the home, it is just not possible for buyers to picture their new life there. Storage units can be a great way to de-clutter a home without having to get rid of anything. Too much furniture, too many decorations, and piles of stuff makes a house look much smaller and takes away from the charm of the home.

Clean: Dirty homes are one of the biggest turn offs for buyers. Deep clean your home before it is on the market. You would be surprised what some buyers notice that you may not. I had a client once that would walk into a home and take a look at the baseboards and if they weren't sparkling my client wanted to leave because she felt like the owners were not clean and did not want to buy a dirty house. Clean blinds, baseboards, vents, appliances, floors, bathrooms, bedrooms, anything you can think of. Get rid of anything with an odor and try to keep your home smelling as clean as possible.

Yard Work: Take a look at your front and back yards. Make sure grass is mowed, plants look neat and well-kept, and get rid of too many plants. You don't want your home to look like a jungle. In the fall and winter, make sure you are keeping both your front and back yards completely clean from leaves, and in spring and summer make sure to water your grass and replace plants that died over the winter. Trim your trees away from your roof (inspectors will often put a tree too close to the roof in an inspection report for buyer to be aware of), prune your bushes, and replace old mulch. Keep the outside of your home looking like a meticulously maintained oasis rather than a waste land. Make sure any trash in your yard is picked up, and if you have dogs keep the back yard clean as well.

Maintenance: Check your entire house for any deferred maintenance. Paint the exterior, fix wood rot, stain your fence, touch up the inside of the home, have a roofer give you a free evaluation on the condition of your roof, get your ac checked, anything you can think of that is not perfect. Pay close attention to cracks in your home. While homes do settle and minor cracking can be caused by the home settling, sometimes cracks can be an indication of foundation problems. While covering settling cracks can make your home look better, if the cracks are from foundation they will return and continue to get bigger.  A home cannot be financed if the roof needs work or the foundation needs to be repaired. Change out all burnt out light bulbs, make sure everything in the home is functioning as it should be such as the garage door, hot water heater, disposal, and appliances. Re-grout bathrooms and tiles where the grout is disintegrating, Buyers would much rather buy a home that is move-in ready and needs minimal repair than have to mess with a home where they have to replace the siding or any other maintenance issue

Updating: If you have a room that has brightly colored walls, paint them. Neutral colors are key to attracting the most buyers. Let the buyers decide for themselves what they want to paint a house. If you are updating flooring, choose something that is easy for anyone to match, not something designer and over the top where a person has to have home decor experience to make it look good. Get rid of colored carpets and anything in the home that is hard to match. Don't go over the top and put marble in a 200,000 home and expect it to sell for more, instead try to update your home to the standards the rest of the neighborhood has. How much updating you should or should not do depends largely on when your home was built, what has been done to the home, and what most other homes in the neighborhood have.