Getting Your Home Ready!

Every seller wants their home to sell fast and bring top dollar. Does that sound good to you? Well, it’s not luck that makes that happen. It’s careful planning and knowing how to professionally spruce up your home that will send home buyers scurrying for their checkbooks. Here is how to prep a house and turn it into an irresistible and marketable home.

Disassociate From the House:

• Make a mental note to “let go” of emotions and focus on the fact that soon this house will soon belong to someone else.
• Keep your goal in mind: selling your home. Yes you love your home and the hope is the buyers will love it too! Don’t look backward – look to the future.
• Evaluate your home with a critical eye. Do you need to make updates? Would putting in new carpet or painting the interior and/or exterior add value to your home and help you achieve your goal of selling more quickly?

De-Personalize:

• Pack up your personal photos and family heirlooms. You want buyers to imagine their photos on the walls.

Declutter:

• If you don’t need it, donate it or throw it away!
• Declutter bookcases.
• Pack up those knicknacks.
• Clean off everything on kitchen counters.
• Put essential items that are used every day in a small box that can be stored in a closet when not in use.
• Think of this process as a “head-start” on the packing you will eventually need to do.

Rent a Storage Unit:

• Almost every home shows better with less furniture. Remove pieces of furniture that block or hamper paths and walkways. Leave just enough furniture to showcase the room’s purpose, but still leaves plenty of room to move around.
• Remove/Replace Favorite Items: If you want to take window coverings, built-in appliances or fixtures with you, remove them now. If the chandelier in the dining room belonged to your great-grandmother, take it down. If the buyer sees it, they’ll want it.

Make Minor Repairs:

• Replace cracked floor or counter tiles.
• Patch holes in walls.
• Fix leaky faucets.
• Fix doors that don’t close properly and kitchen drawers that jam.
• Consider painting your walls with neutral colors, especially if you have grown accustomed to an unconventional color. Don’t give buyer’s a reason to refer to your house as the one with the “orange bathroom.”
• Replace burned-out light bulbs.
• Wash windows inside and out.
• Clean out cobwebs.
• Re-caulk tubs, showers, and sinks.
• Polish chrome faucets and mirrors.
• Clean out the refrigerator.
• Vacuum and dust furniture daily.
• Wax floors.
• Clean ceiling fan blades and light fixtures.
• Beach dingy grout.
• Replace worn out rugs.
• Hang up fresh towels.

Check your curb appeal:

• Keep sidewalks cleared (especially the north-facing homes in winter!)
• Keep your lawn mowed.
• Paint faded window trim.
• Trim your bushes.
• Plant flowers (in spring and summer).

If all of this seems like a lot of work, or you’re not sure where to begin, you can hire the services of a Home Stager. Professional stagers are highly skilled artists. They can take a blank canvas and paint a lovely portrait without ever lifting a paint brush. Stagers possess the skills of a top-level designer, and they create dramatic scenery that appeals to all five senses. A Stager can be hired to do it all, or just for a consultation to get you on your way.

Let SampronSisters.com (Your Westridge Knolls Neighbor – Your Highlands Ranch REALTORS®) help you with the staging of your home.

Contact Us! SampronSisters.com (Your Westridge Knolls Neighbor – Your Highlands Ranch REALTORS®)