If you’ve got a growing family or are looking for more space, then it may be time for you to get a new home. No matter how big or small your home is, you want somewhere you can feel comfortable and hang your hat at the end of the day.
If it’s time to sell your home, don’t worry. It can be done. But if you’re going to sell your home, you need to spruce up your home. By taking some time to make your home look good, you’ll give it that new-home sparkle that first appealed to you when you bought it.
Sprucing up your home doesn’t mean you have to gut your home down to the foundation. You can actually spruce up your home with a little basic maintenance, and make it the next can’t miss home on the market. So what do you need to do to get your home market-ready? By following these tips your home can look great to potential buyers:
Don’t Skimp On Curb Appeal
It doesn’t matter whether you live in a small two-bedroom home or a mansion, outdoor maintenance goes a long way. You don’t have to plant a whole row of trees or put in a new pool, but there’s enough you can do to really make your property stand out. In fact, homeowners usually see a full return on investment for the money they spend on their home’s curb appeal.
One of the best things you can do curb appeal-wise is to clean up your hard and your walkways. Assuming that you’re trying to put your home on the market in the spring or the summer, you can mow the lawn, plant some simple flowers, or even spread some grass seed.
In addition to sprucing up the yard, you’ll want to check on the condition of your roof. It’s easy to overlook the roof, but calling a roofing repair expert to check your roof is a good idea. The expert can check your roof’s condition, let you know of any issues with it, and give you recommendations should any repairs need to be made.
Just as important as your roof, you need to make sure your gutters are clean. Clogged gutters can damage your home’s foundation and cause water to pool up due to runoff. If your gutters are beginning to show their age, a roofing company can likely take care of gutter replacement, so that your home is protected from potentially serious issues. A roof is one of the most important parts of your home, so when you need to spruce up your home, don’t take the roof or your gutters lightly.
As you do important outdoor maintenance to bump up your home’s curb appeal, don’t neglect your home’s heating and cooling system. Essentially, that means you need to check your home’s HVAC system with the help of HVAC services. It’s estimated that half a home’s annual utility bills are a result of heating and cooling needs, so you need to be sure your HVAC system is in tip-top shape.
Sprucing up your home also means do some little things such as washing your home’s windows or touching up the exterior paint. Again, you’re trying to show your home off in the best possible light. Some potential buyers may form an impression of your home, good or bad, right away, so you want to do all that you can to make your home sparkle. If that means washing your sidewalk, touching up the paint, cleaning the gutters, or mowing the lawn, so be it. It will all pay off.
Focus On The Interior
There’s no denying the importance of curb appeal. But hand-in-hand with curb appeal is a home’s interior. If you’re going to spruce up your home before you sell, you need to make the inside shine just as much as the outside. Again, a little bit of hard work can go a long way.
If you’re looking to spruce things up, a good start is simply to tidy things up and de-clutter your home. That means cleaning up cabinets, tables, closets, shelves and anywhere else you might have some clutter. You never know when you might have a curious buyer who wants to explore every single inch of your house. You don’t want a potential buyer to get the wrong impression of your home if they see some cluttered areas. It’s one of the easiest things you can do, so take time to tidy up.
Much like the exterior of your house, when it comes time to spruce up your home, you might want to touch up your interior paint job. At the very least, you might consider cleaning the walls to clean off any dirt or scuff marks. Curb appeal is a great way to bring a potential buyer inside, but you also want a buyer to picture themselves living in your home, and they can do that if they see a clean interior.
Make no mistake: there’s probably some basic repair work to be done too. If your washer and dryer are off-kilter or on the fritz, pull out your manuals and do some washer repair if you can. If you notice things like handles or toilet seats are broken, take time to fix those too.
Make Sure Your Electricity Is In Good Shape
After you’ve cleaned up your home inside and out, you need to enlist the services of electrical contractors to make sure all of your home’s electrical outlets and wiring is in good shape. This will serve many purposes. It will ensure when a buyer turns on a lamp, plugs in appliances, or even connects to WiFi, that there aren’t going to be any shortages or surges.
An important part of checking your electrical hookups also means getting your HVAC system checked from the inside as well as the outside. Local air conditioning services or HVAC services can touch up your existing system or even install a new one if yours is old. If you have a new HVAC system installed, it can be a major selling point to potential buyers.
Enlist The Help Of A Realtor
Once you’ve taken the time to spruce up your home, it’s time to sell it. One of the best things you can do to make that possible is to enlist the help of a realtor.
Plain and simple, a realtor can make the whole housing selling process much, much easier. Real estate agents have the knowledge and experience of your local market to market your home to potential buyers. Agents are experienced at negotiating and can be a great mediator for you and potential buyers looking at your home. Ultimately, a realtor can help you get a great deal for your home.
Realtors can also take care of all the little details that come with selling a home. Real estate agents can help draw up contracts, and make sure that nothing is overlooked during the sale of your home. Agents build their reputations on being able to do repeat business and get positive referrals from satisfied customers, so you can be assured they’ll do a top-notch job selling your home.
Have A Home Inspection Done
Before you sell your home, and perhaps even before you spruce up your home, it’s a good idea to have a pre-listing inspection done. This has several benefits for you as a seller:
- You can make repairs: Once you know about things to be fixed, you can either make repairs or at least let potential buyers know what needs to fixed. For instance, if you need new garage doors installed, you can either have it done, or make note that that’s on the to-do list for the next owner.
- It’ll make things go smoother: By knowing what needs to be fixed, and choosing whether or not to fix things, you can make a home sale go smoother. This way you can be upfront about what’s in need of repairs and you won’t get bogged down in negotiations.
- It can protect you: As accident attorneys will surely tell you, it helps make sure you’re covered legally when you sell a home. In other words, you don’t want something to happen after you’ve sold a home and then be held responsible should something go awry. An inspection helps cover all necessary tracks.
- It makes you trustworthy: Homebuyers appreciate honesty. By being trustworthy, and forthcoming with all details of an inspection, a potential buyer will have no reason to think something’s fishy.
Don’t Be Afraid To Store
When you’re trying to spruce up your home, there’s no doubt that it’s going to take some time. After all, if you’ve got a lot of stuff, it’s going to take some time to clean up and pack away.
If you do have belongings you can easily move out, you might consider making use of local storage services. This way you can keep items you don’t need in a safe location and help make your home more open house-ready.
Most storage facilities these days offer temperature-controlled storage units that are big enough to house things like cars. So if you need to clear out your living room, or clean out the garage, you can easily rent a storage unit at an affordable price.
Avoid Home-Selling Obstacles
There’s no doubt that sometimes selling a home can be an emotional experience. But the whole process can become much easier once you’ve put yourself in a seller’s mindset. Once you’ve done that, you’ll pick on things to try and avoid during the sale of your home.
One thing you’ll want to try and avoid is selling your home during the wintertime. Not many people are looking to move into a new home during the cold of winter and you may not get as much as you’re asking for. A better move is to sell in the spring or summer.
If your home is listed online, don’t be shy about posting as many listing photos as you can. If your home is a catch, you want potential buyers to feel the same way. They can easily do that if they can see clear, concise photos of every room. If you’re handy with technology, you can take some 360-degree pictures or even post some video. Bottom line: don’t sell yourself short.
As previously mentioned, you also don’t want to hide anything. Trying to hide problems with your home can make you seem untrustworthy and could make you liable for any future damages if you’re not upfront about the finer details of the house.
Selling a home is arguably one of the most important decisions you’re ever going to make in life. So one thing to avoid is selling too early. Essentially, if you’re having second thoughts about selling your home, stop, and think about it again in six months.
Make Your Home Shine
Once you’re all-in about selling your home, you need to do all you can to spruce up your home. Leave nothing to chance and take every opportunity you can to clean your home and your property.
By taking the time to do some maintenance, you’re showing potential buyers that you care just as much about the home as they should. By cleaning cutters, cleaning walkways, and tending to artificial grass you may have in the backyard, you’ll really be making your property look its best. By de-cluttering the inside of your home, dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, and fixing nagging issues, you’ll be restoring your home to its former comforting environment.
Once you’ve done all you can to spruce up your home, find an experienced local realtor. With the experience and enthusiasm of a good agent, your home can be one of the can’t miss houses in your local market. Your realtor will arrange showings, iron out contract details, help set a price for your home, and make the entire process of selling a home much easier. With the help of a good real estate agent, all the stress of selling your home will melt away.
