Preparing Your House for Sale
How to make sure your house is dressed for selling success.
Before you open your house to the public, whether for an open house or individual tours, make sure it looks good, doesn't present any safety hazards, and that you and your possessions will be protected.
Fixing Up Your Home
You probably won't want to remodel your house in order to sell. After all, you might spend a lot of money and time only to have the buyer completely redo your work. And you definitely won't want to do it if the boost in value it gives doesn't cover the costs.
Even if you don't put in granite countertops, there are some things you should do to make your home its most attractive. Here are some minimum steps you should take:
- Curb appeal comes first. Sweep the sidewalk, mow, prune, and weed the garden, and clear toys and debris from the front areas. Remove cars from the driveway.
- Buy blooming, potted plants to frame the front door -- and take them with you when you move! If you’re willing to spend a bit more, landscaping your property (particularly the front yard) yields great returns in home value.
- Clean the windows inside and out.
- Touch up any chipped or flaking paint (both exterior and interior).
- Buy an attractive new welcome mat. Be sure that the doorbell works.
- Clean, tidy up, and make attractive all rooms and furnishings, floors, walls, and ceilings -- it’s especially important that the bathroom and kitchen are spotless.
- Organize and make free from clutter all closets, cupboards, and surfaces. Box up all but a few knicknacks and family photos -- they can distract potential buyers. Instead of stacking the boxes in the garage, consider renting a storage unit so they are completely out of sight.
- Make sure that the basic appliances and fixtures work -- get rid of leaky faucets and frayed cords.
- Leave window shades up about halfway and turn on a few lights, so there is sufficient -- but not glaring -- light. Trim any trees or shrubs that are blocking the light.
- Make sure the place smells good. At very least, hide the kitty litter box. You can also keep some scented potpourri in an attractive container in the bathrooms.
- Put vases of flowers throughout the house -- such as on the kitchen or dining room table, the fireplace mantel, and the bedroom dressers.
- Pleasant (but unobtrusive) background music is a nice touch.
- Take a hard look at your furniture. A faded old armchair may be better off hidden -- and the room will look bigger without it.
| Should You Pay a Professional to "Stage" Your House? |
|
Staging has become the rage lately. It means more than just sprucing up a home for sale. (The term “staging” was created by real estate agent Barb Schwarz in the 1970s.)
What do they do? Professional stagers will do any number of things to sell your home more quickly and at a higher price, including redecorating, renting new furniture to show off the home, painting, and landscaping.
Is staging worth it? The cost might run you anywhere from several thousand dollars to five figures. Although some buyers will look past the décor, others will be wowed and will imagine themselves living in this domestic paradise -- and they may sweeten their offers as a result.
The bottom-line. The bottom-line question, of course, is how much more buyers will pay as a result of the stager’s efforts. Sometimes the increase in the seller’s house price is at least double the amount paid for professional staging. But if you’ve got an eye for decorating, this is a job ready-made for a do-it-yourselfer.
|
|
Addressing Structural and Safety Concerns
 | What happens if we've sold our old house without buying a new one? |  |
Consider making needed repairs. You are legally obligated to tell your ultimate buyer pretty much everything you know about the house’s physical condition -- whether it has termites, the state of its roof, walls, and other structural components, and whether its appliances are in operating condition. (To learn more about what you must reveal, see Required Disclosures When Selling Real Estate.)
It may be worth budgeting some money to make some needed repairs before placing the house on the market, so that the purchase negotiations aren’t weighed down by discussions of who should pay for what.
Make your home injury-free. After that's done, think about how to protect visiting home-seekers from possible injury, and yourself from lawsuits. Walk through your home, checking for and dealing with everything that might cause injury, such as:
- Slippery throw rugs -- take them up.
- Loose steps -- fix them.
- Slick areas, such as front steps -- put down rubber mats.
- Long electrical and phone cords -- make sure they are out of the way.
- Unsafe electrical wires and fixtures -- replace them.
- Potentially dangerous areas in yards -- block them off.
- Decks and pools -- childproof them.
- Medicine, cleaning supplies, or household chemicals that children could get into -- lock them up.
- Pets -- put them in an enclosure, even if they have always been friendly; if they are likely to be noisy, arrange for them to take a brief vacation.
- Excess furniture or clutter -- store it elsewhere.
|
|
