Welcome to the final installment in our series about preparing your house for sale no matter what the broader real estate market is doing.
Note we haven't promised that doing this stuff makes it a guaranteed sale, but neglecting it goes a long ways towards insuring you'll be looking at the "For Sale" sign in your front yard for months or years to come.
Your task at hand now is to make that house sparkle. In particular, you should:
- Wash all the windows inside and out
- Beg, borrow, or steal a pressure washer for siding, sidewalks, etc
- Get rid of cobwebs
- Fresh caulk for tubs, showers, sinks
- Polish chrome wherever it might be found
- Clean the refrigerator thoroughly
- Daily vacuuming, floor waxing, dusting
- New rugs, fresh towels
- Get rid of odors wherever they may be hiding
If you've neglected any (or all) of these tasks for a while, the first time through might be daunting. Focus on getting it done once. Daily cleaning maintenance will be more tolerable thereafter.
Now it's time to take a walk through the place. Pretend you're an interested buyer and enter through the the front door. Pause to look around. Does anything about the house say, "Yuck, I'd like to leave now." If so, change it, fix, remove it. Now is the time to enter each room with an eye turned toward the buyer. If furniture needs to be re-arranged - well, it's not going to happen by wishful thinking. Get in there and do it. The goal is to make it look like nobody lives there.
Last but not least, we move to the idea of curb appeal. This idea is so powerful that HGTV created a whole television series around it. Your mission is to make the exterior of the house and yard so appealing that the buyer literally leaps from the real estate agent's car, so eager are they to browse. That might be a little extreme, but never underestimate the power of fresh paint, trimmed hedges, mowed lawn, cleared sidewalk, and a splash of flower color.
That's it. Your house is ready to sell. If you prefer to bypass the pace of traditional real estate agents, give Open Door Auctions and our unique house sales approach two weeks and we'll give you your future.
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