Is Your Home Ready to Sell? Tips to Get Your House Ready for the Market

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You’re starting a new chapter in your life, and you need to change where you live. That’s exciting, but it’s also stressful. How are you going to sell your existing home? What can you do to prepare your house to sell quickly? Everything seems to need an update, a repair, or a touch of inspiration. How do you choose where to focus your time and money?

Here are a few tips from David Lyng Real Estate.

Ask a Realtor

Local real estate agents know your housing market; they know what is selling and what is not. With their knowledge, they can tell you the best staging options to help your home sell quickly. They can also help you decide on the right updates to improve the market value of your home.  Use these tips to start a list of possible updates and staging options to review with your agent.

To get a head start on the process, you can use online real estate listings to see how other homeowners in Raleigh have staged their homes for the market. This can give you a good idea of which trends are attracting buyers so you can focus on what’s working.

Start with Curb Appeal

Begin on the street. You need to take a critical look at your landscaping. Have the shrubs become overgrown? How does your lawn look? Maybe you aren’t a flower person, but it is a good idea to plant flowers for those pops of color that make a house feel like home.

Also, take a close look at your doorway and the path leading up to it. Everything needs to sparkle and shine. Maybe a new coat of paint or new door hardware? Placing solar-powered outdoor lights along the path to the front door gives a warming glow. Finally, put out a new welcome mat that invites potential buyers into your home.

Exterior repairs and general maintenance are a must for selling your home. A poorly maintained and messy exterior sets a negative tone for potential buyers. They begin to wonder how well you’ve taken care of your home’s interior before they even open the door. Check your gutters and downspouts, and ensure windows and screens are clean and in good repair.

Declutter and Depersonalize

Cluttered spaces give the impression of insufficient space. If that’s the case for your home, then you need a plan to get organized — and that often begins in the entryway. If your entry is a dumping ground for shoes, boots, backpacks, and briefcases, create a place to put them or find a place to stow them. Do you really need three pairs of boots in your entryway?

Today’s buyers want organized closets and drawers; they don’t want to see clothes tossed on the closet floor or an overflowing laundry hamper. Messy spaces can leave an impression of poorly organized spaces and careless ownership. Consider renting a storage unit for excess items if you don’t have sufficient storage space in your home.

Also, remove personal items such as family photos and knick-knacks. You want potential buyers to see themselves in your home, and that’s often hard to do with pictures of you and your family on mantels, walls, and display shelves. The same holds for those cherished knick-knacks. Your collection of teapots or farm animals may be the envy of your friends and family, but they only intrude on your buyers’ vision of themselves in your home.

Decluttering your home is also a wonderful opportunity to introduce your child to an allowance. By helping you with this project, you could reward them with money, treats, or a fun activity. You can even use helpful allowance apps to let you slowly introduce the idea to your kids.

Create a Blank Slate

After you’ve removed all those personal items and clutter, create a blank slate that is still warm and inviting. Getting that balance right requires a careful assessment of your interior space.

Take a serious look at your floors and walls. To get that blank slate, you need to neutralize (or at least tone down) your color scheme. Changing paint colors is an inexpensive way to update your home and create a backdrop for buyers to imagine their possessions in your space.  Painting removes the signs of pictures on your walls or other personal items you’ve removed.

Clean everything. From ceiling fans to baseboards, it is essential that your home shine. Consider hiring a cleaning service to keep your home spotless. Also, don’t forget the trash. Be sure to clean all trash cans and remove trash promptly to keep odors at bay. Use odor neutralizers and scented candles to make your property smell fresh.

With your interior and exterior list of repairs and updates, you’re ready to sit down with a realtor to set priorities. Real estate professionals like Paul Burrowes know what buyers are looking for in your area and can recommend where to focus your energies when trying to sell a house.