Are you thinking about selling your home? Here are five tips to consider before selling your home.
1. Watch HGTV’s show Sell This House.
Sell This House provides homeowners with an inside view into how strangers perceive different aspects of house. Your collections may seem like beautiful decorations to you but to an outsider considering buying your home, they may appear more like clutter. Take a look at this show to see how the show host’s make other people’s houses SALE ready.
2. Curb Appeal IS EVERYTHING.
What do you have on your lawn, by your front door, along your driveway that you no longer see but someone else might? Make sure you consider the old planters that no longer have plants in them, the car that no longer works or the kids’ toys that haven’t been played with in a few months. In order to sell your home you need to give buyers a clean slate to work with when they view your house so polish up the outside of your house before you try and sell it.
3. Smell.
Do the smell test… ask a good friend to walk through your house and let you know what they smell and where they smell it. When selling your home smell can make a big difference in a buyer’s perception. Smell can change a person’s mind about a property very quickly. If you have animals, hide the litter and change it often, vacuum the sofas and carpets. You may need the carpets professionally cleaned before selling the house.
4. Walls.
Look at your walls…are they covered in hand prints or furniture marks? Your two best friends are paint and Magic Eraser. Magic Eraser is a minor miracle on the market and will save your hours of time. You can quickly remove spots with it but for more serious challenges including marks and strong or unusual color choices, the paint bucket is your buddy. Help your buyers see the bones of your house by providing them with freshly painted walls in a commonly pleasing color like light yellow, cream, or pale taupe.
5. Hire a Professional Realtor.
When you are ready to list your house, sign up with a qualified Realtor. Realtor’s have experience seeing the benefits of a house behind your personal style and possessions. We have walked many buyers through houses and heard their reaction to different aspects of houses, both bad and good. We know what to call out to a potential buyer, what to fix in advance and what to leave for the next owner.
Many Realtors use a professional stager to help you prepare your house for showings. Make sure you find a Realtor that offers this service so that you are showing your house the best advantage. My team and I offer this service to our clients and we have found that it can make all the difference in creating a pleasing palette for your potential buyers.
When you sell your house, you will most likely have to spend a little money to prepare but in the long run you will benefit with a successful sale of a high value item, your house.
For more information about how my team and I work together to market and sell homes in Vermont, take a look at our Sarah Harrington Real Estate Seller’s Page.