Home Preparation Tips

When preparing to place your home on the market it is critical to have it organized into selling order.  The care and attention essential to bringing your home up to standard can be acquired by retaining the services of a stager.  A stager is someone who will come into the home and create an ascetic look that will appeal to the buying public.  A realtor will typically take on the responsibilities of this role, but some of the top-producing realtors will have a stager as part of their staff.  Most of the services offered by the stager will be designed to maximize the selling price of the home.

A recent survey (conducted by the National Association of Realtors) showed that when comparing sales price, location, and condition, home buyers ranked condition as their top concern in making an initial offer.  If you are not taking steps to ensure that the condition of the home meets all standards, then perhaps listing your home is not a viable option.  Let’s go over some of the tasks you will need to complete before showing your home to the public.

First, you will need to clean your home.  A clean home will demonstrate to potential buyers how you genuinely care about the appearance of your home to others.  An “everyday-type” cleaning will not suffice: you will need to be thorough and “get down and dirty.”  Clean everything, and after you are finished clean everything again.  Make sure that you are cleaning every space and corner, every nook and cranny. It will not take much to distract your potential buyer and divert their attention in the wrong direction.  You do not want your buyer to ever be distracted by un-cleanliness because they will simply walk away.

Next, perform your own inspection of the home and repair any existing issues.  Before opening the house to the public you should develop the biggest honey due list you have ever made.  Go throughout the entire house, inside and outside, and list everything that is not in pristine condition.  These items should be addressed one by one and promptly resolved.  You might need to change out light bulbs, repair a squeaky door, fix a broken ceiling fan, and make sure the water flow throughout the house functions correctly.  In essence, make sure everything is working properly.  Once, I walked into a home that appeared to be perfect, but when I turned on the shower I noticed a small leak.  I became concerned about the plumbing in that house and ultimately we chose not to make an offer on that home.  It was as simple as that.

Your choice of décor may be very different from that of the buyer interested in your home.  Home buyers are frequently unimpressed by decorative choices made by the sellers which do not align with their tastes.  Most realtors will recommend the elimination of any major decorative themes that you created in the home.  You and your family may have loved your daughter’s bedroom, which currently has pink walls and a 10’ by 5’ mural that displays fairies.  However, it cannot be assumed or expected that another person will share the same opinion. Your opinions about your home will cease to be exclusive once you have decided to sell your home. It will be the potential new owner’s opinions that will matter in the end. In the scenario of the daughter’s pink room, it would yield the best results for you, the seller, to paint the room one neutral color.  It may be painful and disheartening to paint over something like a mural, but it is best to remember that this home will no longer be your own.  Assessing the home and modifying the decorative theme to a more neutral one will increase your success in quickly selling your home.

The next task in preparing your home is to de-clutter (remove the clutter).  A helpful hint: less is best, when it concerns the showing your home.  The less materials and assortments you have scattered around the home the more impressive the home will appear.  On a personal note, my mother-in-law had accumulated an expansive collection of pigs over the years, and while this collection was important to her, it could have been a fuse for the discouragement of potential home buyers.  Removing clutter from you home should be one of the more sensible tasks to complete.  It is almost certain that you are in the process of moving from your home, so it can be inferred that you would pack up every nonessential item into boxes, to be stored away until it is time to move.  If you think about it, model homes are positioned in such a way.  When you walk through a model home you can immediately see that it has been accessorized enough to represent the comfort of a home, but not to such an excess as to appear as a cluttered home.  Simply put, clutter is messy and buyers do not want to see a mess.  It is best to just pack it up and get it out of the home.

The exterior of the home should not be overlooked.  Though most home buyers will focus the majority of their time and attention inside the home, they must also be satisfied by what they see on the outside.  Some simple landscaping tips can drastically change the ascetic look of the outside of the home.  One recommendation is for you to go out and clean up any unnecessary items lying around the home.  Remove weeds that appear in the rocks.  Mow the lawn and make sure it is properly watered.  Repair or fix anything that has recently malfunctioned.  By observing a strict maintenance of all of the previously mentioned items, you will be able to capture the best curb appeal possible for your home.

Finally, it is critical to be equally attentive to a potential home buyer’s sense of smell, which is just as significant as sight is in the reaction of a home buyer.  One way to devise a pleasing aroma in the home is to bake cookies about an hour before a scheduled showing.  The appetizing scent of cookies can subconsciously saturate a potential buyer’s internal senses.  They will feel peaceful and pensive, walking through the home that smells so delicious.  If you are not interested in baking (cookies or anything else), then you can disburse scented candles throughout the home for a similar effect.

These are just a few rudimentary suggestions your realtor may share with you, to create a more effective selling experience.  It will garner more attention to the home, which will increase the likelihood of an offer for your home.