If you are planning to sell your
home and looking for tips on preparing your home for selling then here they are:
1) Repaint it. Real estate
surveys find that a homeowner gets their biggest bang for their buck by
repainting the interior of the home in bright white or off-white paint.
Painting the house in neutral colors is always a good idea.
2) Landscape it. Mow it and plant
it. The exterior of the home is the first impression that a buyer will get, and
it will be a long lasting one. Now with so many listings being made available
on the internet, pictures of homes on the internet are what many buyers will
see first of a prospective home and the exterior's condition will determine if
they want to take a look inside!
3) Clean it. Home buyers, it
turns out, hate dirty homes more than just about anything else. So, give the
home a thorough cleaning from top to bottom, inside and outside.
4) Organize it and Declutter It.
If the home is too cluttered for the seller, it probably will look too small
for the buyer. Store away all belongings that aren't regularly used. Store
furniture that isn't necessary for comfortable living. A sparser, less
cluttered room always makes an area look more spacious. This whole process of
cleaning, decluttering, sprucing up homes, and even bringing in designer
furniture to prepare homes for sale has begun a new real estate industry called
"home staging". But a homeowner can duplicate some of these things by
paying close attention to these low-cost things he or she can do as a seller.
5) Fix it. If it isn't working
properly, it usually ends up costing more at the negotiating table than at the
hardware store. Make sure to pay close attention to any plumbing problems (i.e.
a broken garbage disposal) that may exude musty or foul smells. Today's buyer,
with their busy lifestyles, just wants to move in and get on with their
day-to-day business. If they have to spend time in repairing, they will
subconsciously factor in more than the actual cost at the negotiating table.
Statistics usually show that these costs amount to about two to three times
more.
As the homeowner busies himself
with his to-do list of household chores, keep in mind that the better shape the
home is in, the more a prospective home buyer will be likely to pay for it. See this for more details.
