3 Tips for sellers

Are you thinking of selling your home? Is it already on the market? Here are three tips on how to get your home ready to sell.

De-clutter A quick and easy way to get your home ready for showings and open houses is to de-clutter and de-personalize it. This may seem like an unnecessary step, but it’s not. It’s important for potential buyers to enter your home and imagine themselves and their belongings in that space. Some ways you can do this include – taking down photos and personal items; removing decorative pillows and throw blankets from beds and sofas; tidying up coffee tables and kitchen counters; keeping a small percentage of your clothes in closets; etc. In other words, anything that makes the space your own should go so that the it feels more like a blank canvas and less cluttered. The home should feel airy, neutral, clean and inviting.

Minor Fixes Sometimes, a small fix can have a big impact. While you can remodel parts of your home prior to selling, it’s definitely not necessary. Here’s why. When you remodel, you do so to your tastes, and not every potential buyer will like or want to pay for specific upgrades. Second, remodeling is expensive, and costs incurred may not be recouped upon sale. A fresh coat of paint in a neutral color to brighten up a space, patching up holes in walls, washing the deck or driveway, de-cluttering your kitchen, bathroom or garage, removing small furniture pieces or rearranging them to make the space appear larger, and adding lighting to make sure rooms don’t appear dark or small are all examples of quick fixes. This will go a long way in making your home look well put together and ready to sell.    

Staging If you’ve already moved out and the home is completely empty, you might want to consider staging. Professional staging companies will furnish and decorate a home for the purposes of showings, open houses, and photography for marketing. For some potential buyers, it may be difficult to imagine how their furniture will fit into a space, or how they would decorate certain rooms. Staging helps them picture themselves living there and gives them a sense of how large the space actually is, since empty rooms can appear small. Proper staging can also increase the perceived value of a home and may help bring in more offers in a shorter period of time than an empty home. The cost of staging will depend on the size and location of a home, but will be worth it when your house sells quicker and hopefully for more than you asked for.

Have you tried any of these tips? Let me know in the comments.