Yes, I know the market right now is tough, but that doesn’t mean you give up, it means you have to sharpen your skills and get the edge over the competition.

Homeowners, don’t be fooled into thinking you can have your real estate agent  put a For Sale sign in the front yard, take some pictures and that will do it.  Wrong my friends.  You need to do YOUR part to pull out all the stops if you want to sell you home quickly and for a fair price.   Here is a little checklist for you.  You probably want to give yourself a fair amount of time to complete these.  Don’t think it can be done in a weekend.  That’s ambitious even for the “Mrs. Clean lives here” house.  Here is just the basics of what YOU need to do.

REPAIRS – I know you don’t mind the drippy faucet or the cracked tile or the hanging gutter, but a potential buyer WILL.  Number one on your list before it ever goes on the market is to take a very hard look at your house and make all the repairs.  It is crucial.  Potential buyers will deduct from your price every time they see something that needs fixing.

CURB APPEAL  – if you front lawn looks like there might be a car on blocks hiding in the brush, it’s time to take action.  Ok, even if it’s not that bad, it’s still time to take action.  Stand across the street and really look at your house.  Are the bushes blocking the windows, trim them.   Do the beds need some mulch, do it.  Does the driveway have cracks or does it need pressure cleaning?  Time to take action. Does the front door and trim need painting; how about the garage door? Now is the time.  Also do spend a little money and add some colorful plants to draw the eye toward your house.  These little fixes will go along way to make potential buyers want to come in and look. 

DE-CLUTTER – Every cabinet needs to be gone through and now is the time to start packing up what you don’t need right now and to get rid of the things you have been meaning to but just didn’t get around to.  If it’s the middle of Spring, then pack up your winter clothes into boxes or vice versa.  If you haven’t thrown a party and used the fondue pot in the last year, chances are you are not going to throw that party while your house is on the market.  Be realistic.  What don’t you need at your finger tips?  Bathrooms, do you really need the 6 different shampoo bottles tucked into the cabinet that each have one use in them, but you don’t want to throw them away?  Guess what, time to get rid of them.  This means every room in the house and every closet, pantry or cabinet.   

Take down and pack away 98% of the family pictures and collections.  Potential buyers don’t want to see your memories; they want to imagine making their own.  I know it will feel sterile, but how you sell a house is different than how you live in it.  Look seriously at the amount of furniture in each room.  It’s probably time to edit it down to the essentials.  You might have to store it if you are moving on to a bigger place or it just might be time to have a Yard Sale or donate items, if you’re down sizing.  Remember, it will cost you money to move all this stuff that you are not using. 

CLEAN - When I say clean, I don’t mean clean good enough, I mean clean like your snooping mother-in-law or your boss is coming over.  I highly recommend you get a cleaning service to come in and do a thorough top-to-bottom cleaning.  Windows, ovens, vents, exchanges, etc.  Have them dust the places you don’t normally reach.  Take advantage that they have the tools.  Don’t leave anything out. 

Now, I know this sounds harsh and you’re thinking “my house already looks great.”  I am just advising a professional home stager, I know that we are not always as objective as we should be.  It’s tough.  We all like our STUFF.  It really does take an independent person to know what has to be done.  A Professional Home Stager can walk you through the process.  It is money well spent.  The time, effort and dollars spent doing these things before you call your real estate agent, makes it that much easier for your real estate agent to show and sell your home. 

Sharon Conner is the founder and owner of Southern Home Staging.  Let Southern Home Staging provide all your staging needs for your occupied home or vacant home for sale.  Southern Home Staging serves the Metro Atlanta areas Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett and Henry counties in Georgia including Atlanta, Brooks, College Park, Decatur, Douglasville, Dunwoody, Fairburn, Fayetteville, Griffin, Hampton, Jonesboro, Lovejoy, Marietta, McDonough, Morrow, Newnan, Palmetto, Peachtree City, Senoia, Sharpsburg, Smyrna, Stockbridge, Tyrone and Woolsey.