Top Tips To Sell Your Home Well

These tips help you to focus on what to do in order to get your home’s maximum value and best terms when selling. 

Preparing and showcasing your home properly is essential in this competitive market. Imagine you were just invited to an important job interview.  It is crucial to look your best and to be well prepared.  

In addition,  if you have an experienced and successful real estate agent by your side, you will be carefully guided through all the different stages involved in the process. If you want more information about this process and its stages, read our Sellers Guide page. 

Your agent will evaluate the interior and exterior of your home and give you tips, suggestions and recommendations on how to make your home more attractive to the widest range of home buyers. This is just one example where an experienced real estate agent can really help.  Industry data indicates sales with agents are best.

Declutter & Clean your House & Property

Start by organizing and removing unnecessary belongings from each room in the house and the yard. This will make your home look larger and brighter and the yard more open and appealing. There are companies that can do this work for you, and we can recommend some we have worked with successfully. Or you can do it yourself if you have the time or you can find some enthusiastic collaborators who can help with a garage sale, for example. 

After you declutter and organize the house, follow-up with a thorough house cleaning.  A deep cleaning can eliminate unpleasant odors you no longer notice.

Staging is not absolutely necessary, however, is very or somewhat important to help buyers visualize the property as their future home. You can stage yourself, with your own furniture or through a company, we work with some great ones.  If you decide to do it yourself, keep in mind that less is more.  You need only convey the idea of the common use for each space.

It is best to store excess furniture in your garage or in a rented storage space so that it doesn’t distract from the presentation of your home; potential buyers are rarely affected by the contents of a garage.

Here some specific recommendations:

• Closets – hang clothes neatly or put some of them in storage.  Store shoes in boxes 

• Bathrooms – polish the floor, mirror, and fixtures

• Kitchen – clean appliances, cabinets, and floors. Polish the stainless steel. Organize cabinets and clear and clean the countertops

• Remove some of your books from bookshelves if it appears there are too many

• Wash windows inside and out

• Clean the carpets

• Clean and organize your garage

Improve Curb Appeal

One of the most important tips is to create Curb Appeal which is the potential buyer’s first impression of your property.  It’s the impression that someone gets when looking at the house from the street.  As someone once said, “you never have a second chance to make a first impression”.  Don’t miss the opportunity.  In fact, according a National Association of Realtors (NAR) survey, ninety-nine percent of its members believe curb appeal is important in attracting buyers. Our experience confirms their opinion! 

Curb appeal is critical but you don’t need to spend a fortune to make it better. Here are a few things that will help make a favorable impression on potential buyers:

• Keep the lawn mowed and the hedges trimmed

• Store hoses neatly and be sure sprinklers don’t water walkways

• Repair gates, fences, and sidewalks

• Remove or replace dead or dying plants

• Add color with blooming flowers

• Clear the yard of all debris and excess furniture

• Sweep the front walkway

• Paint, fix, or wash railings, storms drains, screens, and doors

Make Minor Repairs

After decluttering and cleaning the entire home, the most highly recommended tip is making minor repairs and ensuring everything works well.

Here are some simple but important minor repairs:

• Replace burned out light bulbs

• Make sure all door locks and latches are working properly

• Make sure all window latches are working and window screens are not torn

• Bathrooms – repair grout and caulking and repair running toilets or faulty plumbing

• Kitchen – your sink should be spotless. Repair leaky faucets and appliances

Don’t spend money you don’t have to! Usually, in lieu of actually making the repairs, an adjustment to the sales price can be negotiated which is much more favorable to the seller and often these issues are never brought up at all.  

How much you invest on repairs, upgrades, or remodeling depends on your budget and the price for which you hope to sell your home. Focus first on minor repairs and consult with your broker on what, if any, upgrades or remodeling will likely be cost effective. 

Also, we recommend you fully disclose any known defects in the required Seller Disclosure statement.  You only need to disclose what you know.  You don’t need to look for problems.  Defects rarely hinder the sale.  Most buyers simply want assurance there are no critical flaws with the property.  Not disclosing defects could expose you to liability later if it is discovered you knew there were problems, but you did not disclose them.

Depersonalize your home

Make your home look attractive and bigger to a wider audience by:

• Painting over any vibrant colored rooms with neutral tones

• Removing personal items like family portraits and photos and political or religious images from walls, furniture, and countertops. The objective is to make your home welcoming to everyone.

• Removing collections, toys, sporting or exercise equipment. Consequently, this helps declutter your home.

• Removing all personal care products in bathrooms such as toothbrushes, cosmetics, lotions, bathrobes. It’s important to allow the buyer to imagine they are living there, not you

Finally, focusing on the process of the sale will not only improve your chance of success, it will also reduce your anxiety and instill confidence that you are on the right road to a great move.