If you’re preparing to sell your house in the next few months, there’s a few things you can do to help your home show better and sell faster.
How long it takes to prepare your house to sell depends on how well you’ve maintained your home and the property it sits on, but most often it takes about a month.
The best thing to do is have a realtor come out and give you recommendations on what all needs fixing and prioritize the list for you. Real estate agents deal with enough homebuyers to know what’s going to catch their eye and be a dealbreaker.
However, we’ll talk about the most common things realtors see and recommend to prepare a home to sell.
A quick word: This list will be about quick things to do right before you list your home. Not renovations. We’ve written before about cheap renovations to improve your resale value. And we did another on renovations that give the best return-on-investment in Missouri.
Clean up and declutter your home before listing it
You need to do more than vacuum (but always do that too) before listing your home.
Do some major dusting, wipe down all your appliances and sinks, and get those windows too.
Make sure your kitchen and bathroom are spotless because those are the two rooms people care about most when shopping for a new home.
If you don’t want to do it, hire someone. Seriously.
A poll of over 900 real estate agents across the country was said a true deep cleaning of a home adds nearly $2,000 to resale value.
Part of this step is also getting rid of clutter in your home.
For all you pack rats, this is another reason to get a real estate agent involved. They’re going to be honest with you on what’s clutter and what’s good to leave out for decoration.
If you’ve got surfaces with lots of items on them, remove the majority and leave just a couple out.
Every surface.
Something else you may not have considered: Cleaning out the closets and cabinets (if at all able).
This doesn’t mean dressers or other storage you’re taking with you. Just the closets and cabinets staying built into the home.
The point for all this decluttering is that your home will appear more spacious to buyers and give you a better chance of selling it!
Fix small, but visible things in disrepair
We’re not talking about remodeling projects here.
If a realtor thinks you need something big, like a new roof or a total remodel of a room, your preparation time may take longer.
In this instance we’re talking about mostly aesthetic items like new paint for rooms that need it, fixing broken trim, deep cuts in linoleum, and so on.
Keeping up with your routine maintenance on a home is worth it, as it turns out. In fact, it can increase your home’s value by one percent each year.
If you don’t, you can lose up to 10 percent of your home’s value when it comes time to sell.
Do some yard work before you prepare to sell your house
You may not enjoy weeding or mowing the lawn but people looking for a new home don’t want a home lacking in curb appeal.
So, cut your grass, weed any flowerbeds or gardens you’ve got, trim the hedges, and lay down some fresh mulch.
If nothing else, make sure the route to the front door looks the best it can.
The entryway to your home needs to be as inviting as you can make it, and it might be worth adding a few flowers nearby.
