Preparing Your Home for Sale

Let's face it folks! It's a home buyers market out there and the guy selling his home has to work hard than ever to just to get people to take a look. Sellers have to combat a diminished home buying market, banks that are unwilling to give loans to interested buyers and appraisal values that are far lower than what they used to be. And these are just a few of the obstacles that today's home owner will face when preparing a home for market. There is hope though! Buyers come out in the spring and there are a few simple things that an owner can do to make his home more appealing to buyers. Let's face it, in today's market you need every trick you can get. Here are the things that I have done that have resulted in a couple of successful sales of my homes.

Make the Exterior Appealing

Mow the lawn and clean the window for a start, but it goes far beyond these things. If you have gnomes or statues in the lawn it may be a good time to move them. Keep in mind that when you go to see a new home the lawn is very vanilla. Buyers like to be able to visualize their concepts and it's very hard to do that on top of another's ideas. Also, you might want to consider pressure washing your home and touching up trim with a fresh coat of paint.

Give the Interior a Model Feeling

If you've ever been in a model home when you walk around all you see is basic home furnishings. You won't find pictures of the family or wall to wall clutter. You need to make the rooms feel as large as possible to the seller, so you may need to move some things into a storage unit and not the one in the backyard. Make sure the carpets are constantly vacuumed and the floors are waxed and polished. Don't leave cobwebs in the corners and touch paint where ever it's needed.

Fix all of those little things

Make all those minor repairs that you've been putting off. You may have to just take a weekend and say that this is the weekend that everything gets fixed. You don't want buyers to come in and find that light in the closet is broken. Little things like this stick out to buyers.

Give your home a vacant ready to sell feel

Give yourself the mindset that you are simply an agent selling a home and when you talk to buyers you need to give that feeling. Removing all personalized items such as pictures and trophies go a long way towards accomplishing this. Walk the home and make sure that every room feels open and spacious. You want the potential buyer to feel like he's walking into his new home and not your old home.

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