Preparing Your Home to Shine

The well-known saying,“You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” is quite true. In fact, there’s a popular study that shows that those impressions can form in just a few seconds.

Preparing your home for sale can be hard work, but when done right, you’ll reap the rewards of your efforts in your bank account.

There are five, major steps to preparing your home for sale, with sub-steps under each one, and are as follows:

We all have too much stuff, and too much stuff can be distracting to potential Buyers.

When preparing your home for sale, you want to eliminate as much clutter as possible—books, knick knacks, storage boxes, off-season clothes, a giant shoe collection, etc.

It’s also important to neutralize your space as much as possible so that potential Buyers can envision themselves living in your home—and that means putting away personal photos, mementos and collections.

Also, remove any attached items that you do not want staying with the house when you leave. This will prevent future issues with potential Buyers wanting something that is not available.

In order to prepare your home for sale, and, have it stand out, the type of cleaning you need to do parallels what what you’d expect in a nice, hotel room.

The following are some suggestions that will help you to achieve a Buyer’s captivation as they walk through your home—some of whom may be very meticulous about various details, to include cleanliness, organization and state of care of their future home:

• • Wash the baseboards

• • Remove the cobwebs from the ceiling and anywhere else they’re located

• • Clean inside refrigerator and oven

• • Clean inside closets and kitchen cupboards

• • Dust wherever needed

• Have the carpets professionally cleaned

Unfortunately, for some, the cleaning won’t stop when the house goes on the market. Every day, the bed needs to be made, the dishes done, the floors swept and mopped, and the kid’s/kids’ room(s) need to be cleaned up.

Imagine, as a potential Buyer, pulling up to the probable future home you had selected online. It could either further draw you to the house with excitement (e.g., well-maintained lawn, an inviting door, a beautiful garden), or repel you to even bother to look inside (e.g., highly neglected lawn, a door missing some of its paint, odor from animal feces left outside for too long).

The answers to these questions will help you to make a great first and lasting impression for your home!

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make your property appeal to Buyers as they pull up to the curb.

It’s often a good idea to repaint your front door; after all, it’s one of the first details Buyers will notice.

As for the rest of the exterior, a thorough powerwashing and window cleaning will suffice.

When it comes to landscaping: pull weeds, as well as seed any dead patches of grass.

Be the house that captivates the eye and moves the heart!

Let’s face it, we all have a tendency to procrastinate fixing the little stuff—the leaky faucet, the peeling wallpaper, the dent in the kitchen cabinets, the loose gutters, etc.

Bringing in a handyman to complete the little flaws will go a long way, and will communicate to potential Buyers that your home has been well-maintained.

Aside from renovating a severely outdated kitchen or bathroom, any home improvement that doesn’t add square footage isn’t worth the effort.

A fresh coat of paint can work wonders on even the shabbiest of rooms. Strip off any old wallpaper and fill holes from nails and picture hangers; then, give your interior a fresh coat. Replace bright colors of paint with more neutral shades of white or beige.

You may also want to think about updating old light fixtures and window treatments, which can transform an old home into a shiny new one.

A house in great condition will attract more solid Buyers—that is, serious, motivated, and qualified Buyers. Fixer-uppers can attract more risky Buyers, lowball offers, and those with less secure funding.

Staging involves optimizing the use, look and feel of every room in your home.

Your home will need to impress prospective Buyers all on its own.

Staging does not need to be hard, time consuming, or even costly. At a minimum, staging may consist of only boxing all the extra “stuff ” around the house, and rearranging what you already own.

But remember: the effort you put into transforming your home will impact how long it takes your home to sell, and of course, the price you receive.

In addition, when you choose to transform your home while having some fun, you will discover than the process itself will become effortless, and time will seem to fly by.

For more information, please use the following valuable resources for information about selling your home:

• • So You’re Interested in Selling Your Sedona Home?

• • Goals Determine Strategy

• • Do You Really Need A REALTOR?

• • Come on Down…The Price is Right

• • Let The World Know

• • All That is Involved to Close the Deal

• The Finish Line