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I've read numerous threads on CD where sellers or potential sellers are asking what they should do before listing a home for sale. I thought this might be a good opportunity to provide a list of basic helpful tips for those who may need a little help. Feel free to add to this list. I am going by what has worked for us in the past. We've sold every home we've owned within two weeks of listing. YMMV.
Walls - Patch any holes, sand smooth, and then prime and paint. Consider using earth tone neutral colors on all of the walls. Not all buyers are alike and trying to add too much color can be a turn-off for a buyer. Accent walls should also be repainted to match the rest of the walls.
Floors - If the carpet is dirty consider having it professionally cleaned. If the carpet is too far gone to clean, either replace it if the budget permits or research having it professionally dyed. If the laminate is scratched, there are products on the market that can hide the scratches and restore the finish to the material. The same goes for hardwoods.
Visually inspect the home. Make sure everything is in working order! Check all of the sinks for leaks, ensure all light fixtures operate properly, and any appliances that convey with the house function properly. Make sure all light fixtures have working bulbs in them.
De-clutter!! This cannot be stressed enough. Remove family photos and personalized items in the home. Lock up any valuables and remove them from sight. Buying a home is an emotional process. If a buyer sees your belongings, they may have a difficult time visualizing themselves in the home. Remember...... blank slate.
Stage the home. If you're not comfortable doing this consult a professional. If you have three couches and two chairs in a living room it could make the room appear small. Less is more! If you have a home office, ensure that all paperwork is stored inside of a closed cabinet for a neater appearance.
CLEAN the house. Scrub top to bottom down to the fine detail. A nicely staged CLEAN home will give the appearance that you have taken pride in maintaining the house. Once it is clean the job isn't done. Go through the house every evening after work and make sure everything is in its place and give everything a quick wipe down.
Make sure shrubs are trimmed, the grass is cut, and the flowerbeds aren't full of weeds. If the flowerbeds are all dirt, consider adding new mulch for a clean look.
If your shutters and front door are faded and in a not-so-popular color, consider repainting them to a more modern color for more appeal.
Before someone comes into the home for a showing, make sure to turn off anything giving off a scent. Too strong of a smell could be a turnoff for a buyer who has sensitive sinuses. Turn on all of the lights, turn off the ceiling fans, and open the curtains to allow as much natural light into the home as possible. Take out the trash if there is anything in it that could present an odor (like that tuna-fish sandwich you didn't eat for lunch).
Be prepared for some cleanup after a showing. It should be minimal, but chances are a buyer may not realize their shoes aren't completely clean and track in some small debris by accident. While it's always the goal to keep the mess to a minimum it's better to be in the mindset that you may need to tidy back up after they leave.
We typically leave a summary sheet on the kitchen counter for a potential buyer that lists out current cable/internet providers available, average yearly utility expenses, local restaurants, shopping areas, local parks, and any other tidbit of info that a buyer may find useful such as when work was performed on the home, and who the work was performed by with their contact information (This works for us, but may not work for everyone). We also provide the buyer with all of the appliance owner manuals, warranty cards, etc.... at closing.
If your agent or your potential buyers are providing feedback, LISTEN to it. If 5 people tell you they hate the wall color or the nasty carpet you need to address it quickly regardless of your personal opinion on it.
Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
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I also create a brochure for my house. Throughout the year, I take pictures of my house and then create a really simple flyer/brochure that advertises my house as a house for all seasons. I have pictures of my house after a snowstorm, in the spring when all of my plants are gorgeous, in the summer when everything is lush and green and then in the fall when I show off the beautiful foliage.
My DH and I have sold several homes fairly easily over the years, and here's what I would add to the excellent advice that has already been posted.
However large or small your closets are (but especially if they are on the small side), take enough of your clothing out so that there is visible space between each hanging item, and separate out the hangers so all the items have equal space between them. Remove any non-clothing items from the closet so that the floor of the closet is bare or only has a pair or two of shoes lined up, and fold your sweaters neatly and put them on the top shelf. It should look like one of those minimalist layouts from a California Closets ad. If it looks beautifully organized in there, the prospective buyer will unconsciously feel that if they buy your home, they will be organized like that too.
From the moment you plan to list your house, change how you think and talk about it from "my home" to "the new owner's home."
This goes with the advice to stage your home. Whether you stage it to the hilt or not, it's not appropriate to keep a lot of personal tchotchkes around. To you they look like happy memories, to the potential buyer they look like junk and make them feel they are in your house, not theirs. Remove and store (on the advice of our Realtor, we just put them in Rubbermaid totes in the basement) any items of a personal nature, like photos, etc. and keep very few decorative items out--the clean look is best, as it invites the prospective buyer to picture their own items in the space. (When my DH and I were looking at homes in the area where we now live, we viewed a home that had belonged to a local surgeon. There were dozens of photos in the living room, making us feel as though we were intruding on someone else's home. And the worst, a framed pen and ink drawing on the bedroom wall, depicting the surgeon elbow deep in some poor patient's abdomen. We left in rather a hurry.)
Spring for professional photos and a professional cleaning service before you list. Even if you clean your house routinely, unless you are in the habit of doing deep cleaning on a regular basis, there will be dirt you don't even notice--but your prospective buyers will.
I think a lot depends on the market. I sold my house last summer, and we have a sellers' market here. All I did was move absolutely everything to my new home, have it cleaned by a professional housecleaner, have my lawn guy cut back the shrubs, and then put it on the market. My realtor took some photos for the listing, and photoshopped them so they looked OK.
I wanted to complete some deferred maintenance and repairs, but my real estate agent said we could do that later while it was on the market.
It was under contract in 4 days at a very good selling price so I never had time to do any of the repairs I had intended to do. The buyers wanted a lot of little trivial things fixed, which was a pain in the rear but didn't cost me NEARLY as much as what I would have spent had I worked on it beforehand.
BTW, I was amazed at how unappealing my home was to me once it was empty. I thought I would feel bad about leaving it, but didn't once I saw it like that. It just seemed so impersonal; it didn't seem like my home any more.
I think a lot depends on the market. We have a sellers' market here. All I did was move absolutely everything to my new home, have it cleaned by a professional housecleaner, have my lawn guy cut back the shrubs, and then put it on the market.
I wanted to complete some deferred maintenance and repairs, but my real estate agent said we could do that later while it was on the market.
It was under contract in 4 days so I never had time to do any of the repairs I had intended to do. The buyers wanted a lot of little trivial things fixed, which was a pain in the rear but didn't cost me NEARLY as much as what I would have spent had I worked on it beforehand.
BTW, I was amazed at how unappealing my home was to me once it was empty. I thought I would feel bad about leaving it, but didn't once I saw it like that. It just seemed so impersonal; it didn't seem like my home any more.
This.
In a seller's market, you don't really need to try all that hard. Case in point, while we were kind enough to patch homes and touch them up with paint, our seller either didn't patch the hole or patched but didn't paint. There were set in cat pee stains on the ugly sawdust colored carpet. The white tile probably hadn't been cleaned or sealed in at least a year. We bought the house. Oh, I'm sure all the aforementioned turned off a few people, but we jumped on it because it was a real gem. A custom house in a trending upward neighborhood with a large lot. The house is different even in a neighborhood of "different" homes. Glad we bought it warts and all because if we had waited until this year, we would have been priced out. People are bundling in their remodels and the resulting prices would have been too high.
But I do agree that a home should be clean, uncluttered, impersonal, and filled with light. Landscaping should be neat and tidy. No evidence of animals even if you have five dogs.
It took us a full six months to get our home "sale ready". I was inspired by model homes. It was hard with two small kids but the way we presented the house, you would not have known there were any kids present. We rented two storage units for several months so that the only things still in the homes were the things that we needed. I think presentation did definitely help but I think what also helped more was the fact that the market was on fire at the same time.
My DH and I have sold several homes fairly easily over the years, and here's what I would add to the excellent advice that has already been posted.
However large or small your closets are (but especially if they are on the small side), take enough of your clothing out so that there is visible space between each hanging item, and separate out the hangers so all the items have equal space between them. Remove any non-clothing items from the closet so that the floor of the closet is bare or only has a pair or two of shoes lined up, and fold your sweaters neatly and put them on the top shelf.
From the moment you plan to list your house, change how you think and talk about it from "my home" to "the new owner's home."
Spring for professional photos and a professional cleaning service before you list. Even if you clean your house routinely, unless you are in the habit of doing deep cleaning on a regular basis, there will be dirt you don't even notice--but your prospective buyers will.
Yep, we did this too! Our closet was packed so tightly (one of our complaints) that we could barely find anything. It was just too small. We left just enough to get by on and the seller talked about how spacious the closet was.
I think a lot of sellers get hung up on the house being their house and allow emotion to play too much into their decision making process. When we removed our personal belongings, it felt more like something we were renting instead of our home. We were more easily able to cut ties with it and remove any emotional attachments. It became a business transaction at that point and we wanted to sell.
I've read numerous threads on CD where sellers or potential sellers are asking what they should do before listing a home for sale. I thought this might be a good opportunity to provide a list of basic helpful tips for those who may need a little help. Feel free to add to this list. I am going by what has worked for us in the past. We've sold every home we've owned within two weeks of listing. YMMV.
Add this to the list:
Understanding the impacts of location, pricing, and market conditions. Interpreting the information into a marketing and advertising plan using every channel possible enabled by the means that suit your goals--hire an agent, FSBO, or some hybrid.
The way your post reads, mulch and paint is somehow the reason you've sold multiple properties within 2 weeks of listing--not a logical or substantiated conclusion.
This topic is prevalent throughout the board, hardly new thread material.
Even when you are in a seller's market, you are still competing with others. Don't use the market as an excuse to slack off on prepping your home. If you are competing with four other homes in your neighborhood, be the best cleaned, the best staged, the best photographed. You may wind up getting the best price. The staging advice above is excellent.
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