Getting Your Lake Orion MI Home Ready for Sale
We are not currently in a market where it is worth gutting your kitchen or baths before selling your Lake Orion MI house. Those things will make your house easier to sell, but dropping the price by the amount of the cost of a new kitchen or baths would do the same thing and your house will have an easier time appraising. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do to better show off your house without spending a fortune.
Unless you live a fairly Spartan lifestyle at home you probably need to de-clutter your house. Rent a storage unit and put everything in it you don’t need for the next few months. I like to read. I have hundreds of books. If I were going to put my house on the market today, I would keep the next 6 books I plan on reading and put the rest in storage. If it’s winter, put your summer clothes in storage. Stop buying food other than what you will be eating in the near future- stop buying the 46 roll package of toilet paper and hold off on buying a side of beef!
Clean your house from top to bottom. Clean the windows, steam clean the carpet, look at the switch plates on the light switches- they are probably dirty and cheap to replace. Pull out your appliances and scrub the floors. If you’re handy with a paint brush it might be a good idea to paint the interior of the house- at least the entry level. If you’re not much of a painter, labor has gotten much cheaper in this economy. It might be worth the few hundred dollars; a bad paint job doesn’t help sell a house.
If your carpet is worn you might want to replace at least some of it. The living room is an important room to a buyer. It’s typically where family and visitors gather and if the living room along with the kitchen and baths show well you are well on your way to getting that house sold in a timely manner.
If it’s winter, keep you walk ways and porch shoveled and the driveway clean.
If it’s summer keep the lawn mowed, flower beds clean and if there isn’t much color invest in a couple flats of annuals.
These things aren’t going to make your house worth more. Appraisers don’t give value for being clean. But a buyer has to want to buy your house and a buyer will either by pass a house that doesn’t show well or low ball. Buyers make their decisions partly on emotions and often times cosmetics will become “it needs.”
I would be happy to meet with you prior to you putting your house on the market and give you my professional opinion on what you need to do prior to listing your house. Or I can hook you up with a professional stager.
Jackie Hawley
ReMax Encore, Clarkston MI
Cell: (248) 736-6407
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