Getting top dollar for your house begins with understanding how to see your house through the eyes of a buyer. To be a successful seller, you must have your house looking its best! Getting your house ready to sell is not necessarily difficult, but it can take a little bit of time and effort. It is almost always worth it in the end though.
Step 1: Create curb appeal! Home buyers are human! That means they will make snap judgements about your house beginning from the first time they lay their eyes on it. Boiled down this means one thing: first impressions last – so make sure the first impression is a good one. Buyers generally decide if they care to see the inside of a house within 20 seconds of viewing the external attractiveness (curb appeal) of a property. That’s right – no matter how much time you spend making the interior of your house look great, buyers will drive by or pass on a house if the curb appeal does not impress them.
Some easy steps to improve curb appeal include decluttering (hide trash bins, lawn mowers, bikes, etc.), doing a little landscaping, cleaning up front porches and of course fresh flowers never hurt!
Step 2: Exteriors attract, but interiors sell! Once your freshly groomed and cared for exterior has brought potential buyers into your house, make sure the inside will help nail the head on the sale. Again, you do not have to spend large amounts of money to clean up your home’s interior, little changes and details can make a big difference. Our philosophy has to do with the three C’s: Clean it up, Clear the clutter and make Cosmetic improvements.
Easy improvements for cleaning include making sure all kitchen appliances are scrubbed and clean of any cooking residue and smells. Use a little polish on stainless steel appliances and make them sparkle! Clean tubs, showers, toilets and sinks and make them look as new as possible. Clean and steam drapes, dust off blinds and clean and vacuum carpets. A little elbow grease will go a long way. Help keep your home odors free with potpouri and air freshners and keep to neutral scents like citrus, a scent most people can handle.
Declutter your home so that potential buyers can walk through and imagine their things in the home without the distraction of your personal belongings everywhere. Remove kitchen appliances off countertops, keep dishes out of the sink, remove stacks of magazines and newspapers and clear out all of that storage from the attack space! Take anything you can out of closets to make them look large and roomy, not over-stuffed and crowded. In the areas where you do have to have your things, make them look comfortable and appealing.
Lastly, cosmetic improvements may be necessary to help sell your home. If you have loud, bold or personal paint colors on the walls, consider painting over with neutral colors that allow potential homeowners to use their imaginations about how they would decorate a room when they walk through. Soft whites and creams are best. Avoid having basements that look dark and gloomy! Brighten up these spaces to make them look as inviting as possible. Make any repairs that is needed and avoid having problem-areas in a home that could turn away potential buyers. Check for cracks over doors or windows, cracked window panes, rust stains and mildew in bathrooms, drippy faucets, and so on. Chances are if you know about small cosmetic issues like these, potential buyers will notice them too!
Step 3: Consider staging your home. We always encourage our clients to consider staging when they are ready to list their home for sale. Staging a house goes far beyond anything else to make a house look neat, clean and well-cared for. It creates a production out of your home designed to ‘wow’ potential purchasers and allows them to visualize their lives in your house.
If you are thinking about selling your home, contact us and we can help you prepare your home to be successful in the Nashville real estate market and get it sold and get you into a new house quickly. Check out our listings page to see houses we currently have on the market and get an idea of what well-prepared for homes look like.
Happy selling!
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Tips and Tricks surely helped a lot thnx