Things to Do Before Listing Your Home for Sale
Selling
You want your home to look its best when you put it up for sale. The task might seem overwhelming at first, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are some things to do before listing your home for sale that will make your home market-ready.
Making your home market-ready
You have a lot of things in your home that you are used to living around, but potential buyers might find them distracting. Additionally, you can enhance the looks of your home without emptying your wallet. Here are a few tips and tricks you can use to get your home ready for sale:
1. Unclutter
Box them, bag them, sell them, gift them, but ultimately get rid of them prior to putting your house up for sale: knick-knacks, things cluttering up counter-tops, photos, and personal items on display. Whatever you plan on keeping, box up and put in storage.
Prospective buyers want to be able to envision their things in your house, and they cannot do this with a lot of distractions around.
2. Scrub-a-dub-dub
Clean everything that doesn’t move: carpets, walls, windows, ceiling fans, fingerprints on light switches and doors, floors and the corners of the floors (an area even professional cleaners often miss). A clean house welcomes buyers whereas a dirty one sends them on to the next house on their list.
3. Let in the light
Good lighting is number 2 on the list of things buyers want in a home, the first being location, so open your shades, curtains and blinds during the daytime to let the natural light in. Install full spectrum bulbs in every light fixture, and clean or replace lampshades.
4. Make your walls look fresh
Clean off scuff marks and repaint where it is needed to make the walls look pristine. Use a light very low VOC of no-VOC paint to avoid a chemical smell in the house.
5. Upgrade your kitchen if possible
Your home’s kitchen will be the selling point for many people, so here are some low cost tips on upgrading it:
- Kitchen counters: Taking as many appliances and other things off your kitchen counters as possible will make the room seem larger.
- Kitchen faucet: Shine up your kitchen faucet or get a new, fancier one, giving your kitchen an instant updated look.
- Kitchen cabinets: New hardware such as knobs and hinges for your kitchen cabinets is a quick and relatively inexpensive upgrade. New cabinet doors for your cabinets is a more expensive upgrade.
- Kitchen appliances: You might be able to order new face panels for your appliances that can give them an updated look.
6. Closets, the pantry, attics, garages, and basements
For closets, box up all the clothing except what you need for the current season and put the boxes in storage. A half-full closet shows well. Organize your pantry in an orderly fashion. Take everything you do not need from the basement and attic and put it in your storage facility.
Doing all these things before listing your house for sale may make it look a little barren to you, but the lack of clutter and extra stuff makes your home look larger and gives prospective buyers a chance to mentally move their things into your home. This brings them closer to making an offer on your home.
