- Divorce yourself from your house the moment you decide to sell. Seriously. It is no longer your home, it is a piece of property you are selling. This is business, not personal. Look at your house with fresh eyes. Would YOU buy this house as it looks now at the price you hope to receive? No? Well then get cracking!
- Clean, clean, clean, clean, clean. Everything else is secondary. Forget baking cookies, vanilla scented candles or cinnamon potpourri. You know what a prospective buyer wants to smell? Nothing. That’s right, no animal smells, cigarette smoke, burned dinners, or anything else associated with house problems or lack of cleanliness, or possible animal allergies. So do yourself a favour, and clean your house (or have a cleaning service do it) from top to bottom, and keep it clean during the selling process. That includes making the beds daily, having the dishes done, the coats hung up, and paper and clutter put away.
- Curb appeal matters. You don’t have to repaint your house or replant the gardens, but make sure the lawn is mowed, the weeds are pulled, light bulbs all work, and any chipped paint has been touched up. If you will be living at the house while it is on the market, flowers in the garden or in pots by the door can add a wonderful, lively pop of colour.
- Paint is your friend. A fresh coat of paint in a builder’s beige can freshen up any room. Not every room needs to be painted if you don’t have time – just paint the main rooms people will walk into, the ones immediately seen. A good first impression can sell your home.
- Purge, purge, purge, and then purge some more. Box up and store your excess possessions, including furniture. This really does include that wall of photos of your children from birth through to their marriages. You want a prospective buyer walking into your house to see it as their home, not yours. Get rid of the decorations, the self help stickers, the awards and distractions. You want a perspective buyer to get a sense of space, not a dark, dingy hovel. Square footage sells so take advantage of yours and make it visible. Rent a storage unit for those boxed up excess possessions. You are fooling no one leaving all those boxes out in the garage. People just assume your house is too small, you don’t have enough storage, you don’t keep your house clean and tidy, can’t fit a car in the garage, etc. when you leave those packed boxes in the garage.
- Create a punch list of items that need to be fixed and then make the repairs. The more move-in-ready to a perspective buyer, the better. The more move-in-ready, the closer to asking price you should receive.
- Safe guard your valuables. Regardless of how diligent you, or your Estate Agent is, things go missing during an Open House or private showing. Make sure your valuables are locked away and not easily portable by a thief. There is more than one story of people posing as perspective buyers just to case a house for later (or rob it right there and then). Be smart and lock away your valuables where they can’t be easily found or stolen.
