Listing your home successfully involves a lot more than putting it up on a listing site and a For Sale sign in your yard. While you can do that, it greatly reduces your chances of both selling quickly and selling for the highest possible price. Selling your home is a stressful process already, you don’t want to increase that by lowering the probability of a good sales price and lengthening the amount of time your home is on the market. The longer the home is on the market, the more likely it is that it will sell for less.
Every seller wants their home to sell quickly and make a significant profit off of it. You can better your chances of this through careful planning and preparation.
Why You Should Prepare Your Home Before Putting It On The Market
For maximum resale value and minimum time on the market, investing time and effort to prepare your home can attract buyers and higher sale prices. A clean, prepped home is more marketable because it’s easier for potential buyers to envision themselves in the space and lures them with the knowledge that the amount of work they will have to do when they move in is minimized. This will make them more likely to pay a premium, and result in higher profits and faster closing.
While preparing your home for listing involves a lot more elbow grease, the extra effort pays for itself once potential buyers start coming through and making fantastic offers.
How To Prepare Your Home To Sell
You want your home to be clean, organized, and somewhere in good condition without any hidden repairs that home inspectors will uncover and blow your chances at securing a great offer and quick closing. While letting go of your home can be difficult, preparing your home before listing it will both help you detach from it emotionally and make it easy for potential buyers to see it as a place they can live.
Depersonalize Your House
A home with personal photographs and trinkets and touches around is one that makes buyers who walk through during showings feel more like they’re visiting someone else’s space rather than somewhere that could be theirs. It’s harder to imagine how you’ll set up and decorate a house when someone else’s personal effects and distinctive furniture are all over the place.
Depersonalizing your home by packing up such belongings and putting any furniture that isn’t neutral will present a clean, impersonal environment that will increase your chances of a good sale, since potential buyers can more easily envision how they’ll make the house theirs. The more your home feels like a freshly built and staged house, the easier it will be for buyers to see it as a future home of their own. It’s hard to see a space as somewhere that could be yours if there are bright orange walls in the bathroom, religious symbols around, and a cheetah print beanbag. Putting yourself in the buyer mindset and presenting a house that’s as neutral as possible will make a better first impression and attract more and better offers.
Declutter The Space
Nothing hurts your chances at selling quickly and well than a home that seems cluttered, messy, and like it hasn’t been maintained. Buyers want a home that feels spacious, that looks clean, and that they can feel confident in the fact that they won’t need to do a ton of work when they move in. In order to make your house feel as large and open as possible, you’ll want to conduct a thorough decluttering.
This doesn’t mean shoving your things into closets and drawers, because buyers will want to look into these spaces. Rather, consider renting a storage unit and getting storage bins that can store your belongings in a way that looks clean. You will need to pack anyway – consider this a head start.
Conduct A Deep Clean
After you’ve packed up your personal belongings and made your house look as spacious as possible by decluttering as much as you could, you’ll want to conduct a deep clean. If it’s something you can afford, having professional cleaning done will present your home in the best possible light, but it’s entirely possible to put in elbow grease and make your home shine. No one likes a home with stained carpets and dusty countertops.
You’ll want to make sure that you clean the less obvious areas too, such as your appliances and inside your closets and your garage. While you may not usually go into these areas and they’re not somewhere obvious, buyers will be looking at everything in your home. You don’t want a grimy oven to influence their opinion and turn them away. You want to keep your home looking as spotless as in the professional pictures you have done because you never know when a buyer could schedule a showing.
Have Any Necessary Repairs Done
Nothing scares buyers away like a home in need of obvious and significant repairs. They don’t want to have to invest time and effort into making a home livable and in good condition, which is why many buyers have home inspectors go through your home to catch any hidden problems. Having repairs done will show that you maintain it and make it seem cleaner and more put-together.
If you have broken or missing shingles, a leaky sink, chipping paint, problems with doors and windows, ripped carpet, these are all things that need to be repaired before you list your home. To be extra thorough, you can have a pre-listing home inspection done, to ensure that you don’t miss problems with plumbing or any other issues that will send up a red flag to buyers.
Make It As Photogenic As Possible For Professional Photos
Most buyers search for homes online which makes professional pictures of your home a must. While you can take pictures yourself, high quality photos will ensure your home is portrayed in the best possible light. You’ll want to make your home look as clean and staged as possible, so you may consider hiring a staging service before having your photos taken. Your real estate agent will be able to help you find a professional photographer.
Upgrade Its Curb Appeal
One of the most common mistakes people make when preparing to list their homes is overlooking the exterior. The outside of your home is a buyer’s first impression of it, and a yard full of weeds, a dirty roof, and siding with peeling paint can cause them to turn around before they even see your beautifully presented interior. You can maximize your curb appeal through adding a fresh coat of paint to your front door, putting out a nice welcome mat, pressure washing your roof, sprucing up your property, and mowing the lawn. If your driveway has cracks, you can hire a contractor to come out and fix them.
Final Steps
With all the work that goes into preparing to list your home, it can be easy to overlook your home itself in the process. Take a walk throughout your home and put yourself in the buyer mindset. If you’re confident that it will attract buyers, it’s time to talk to your real estate agent about listing it. If you need help preparing to list your home, the real estate agents at Inman Torres and Company are well-versed in the listing process and what will make your home stand out in the local market.
