by Teresa Larson, 20+ years year real estate experience
(801) 750-5446
You have heard a lot about the importance of staging your home to sell. Staging your home can help you receive the highest possible price for your home. Part of staging your home to sell is simply conducting routine maintenance. Staging is not only using new furniture and conducting expensive upgrades on your home. Whether you do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. Realistically many people cannot or do not want to put out the extra expense of new furniture, carpet, paint and so on.
If you can’t do an all out staging or upgrade your home in order to sell there is much you can do to help you get the highest possible price. Following are some things you can do if you are in a pinch or just simply do not want to spend a lot of money staging or fixing up your house.
- Clean the interior and exterior as best as you can.
- Remove all fingerprints, smudges and dust from walls, trim, doorways and floor boards.
- Clean and dust all your furniture and appliances, including all decorative items.
- Clean your curtains, blinds and windowsills.
- Clean your windows inside and out.
- Clean your bathrooms and kitchen including removing any mildew from the bath and shower areas. Re-caulk as needed. The cabinets in these rooms should be cleaned and polished to look their best.
- Remove excessive furniture or old worn furniture from your rooms. You need to have some clear spaces. In other words de-clutter. Box up some of the stuff you don’t use much and ask a family member or friend to hold it for you until you get moved. Some people rent small storage sheds and store things there.
- Maybe a new comforter in the bedroom, or some new pillows on the couch could liven up a room without costing too much.
- Clean out and organize your closets. When a door gets opened you do not want stuff to fall out.
- Try to remove most of your personal pictures and knick knacks as they are distracting to buyers.
- Patch and paint any holes that are inside or out. A fresh coat of paint helps a lot and is one of the least expensive things you can do when selling.
- Have your furnace and air conditioning serviced.
- Make sure the yard is spruced up the lawn is mowed regularly, bushes and trees need to be trimmed. Your garden and flower bed areas need to be free of weeds. If selling in the winter your walks need to be shoveled and icy spots sprinkled with a de –icer.
- Decks need to be stained or painted if needed.
Clean the carpets and flooring. If they are stained or torn try and replace them. - Pay for a roof inspection if your roof is over 10 years old to find out if there is at least 3-5 years of life left in the roof.
- Before each showing turn on all your lights so the buyer doesn’t have to search for the switches. Have the blinds open.
- If you have pets it is best to remove them from the house when you are showing. Personally I think you can get away with a cat. I am a cat lover! A cat will usually stay out of the way. Make sure the litter box is clean. But dogs and other exotic pets can be a problem. Buyers need to be able to walk into your back yard and look around in peace. Take your dog for a walk if he is a barker.
Sellers need to leave for a perfect showing. The buyer feels more at ease if you are not there. The real estate agent will conduct a professional showing and be able to do the job with the buyers feeling more comfortable. These are all suggestions that will help you to get your home sold. The more you can do the better. These are things many people do on a regular basis just to keep their homes in order. In the busy lives we lead it can become hard to keep it all up. If you do these things on a regular basis your home will be a much nicer well cared for place. If you do need to sell sometime you will be ready!
©Teresa O Larson PC, 2014
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