Top Ten Tips for Home Sellers
1. You've heard this before, but that's because it's important! Make your home white glove clean. Run your finger across your stove vent hood, along casement mouldings, blinds, and other places were dirt and grease collect.
2. De-Clutter, inside and out. A rough guideline is to remove 50% of your belongings. Some homeowners need to remove much more. Pack up your personal collections, photographs, hobby gear. Remember this will pay off when it's time to move, as much will already be packed!
3. After doing #1 and #2 above, have an unbiased person with a good eye for design to come give you an evaluation. It is important that this not be a friend or relative, or anyone attached or familiar with the home. You want fresh eyes! Of course, a home stager is a professional who will offer this service.
4. Those TV design shows can be informative but watch them with a grain of salt.They pick out a bunch of obvious things, make the changes look quick and easy with their unseen staff workers, and have unrealistic budgets. All that matters is your home and the local market.
5. When contemplating updates, do some research to determine if they will pay for themselves in the sales price, and/or help your home sell faster. Your realtor and home stager can help you with this.
6. Find out what staging can do for you. While a relatively new concept, there are now good statistics to show that professional staging does increase average sales prices, and decreases days on the market. An investment in staging is small in comparison to the results. If your home isn't selling, and you are considering a price reduction, first get a home staging consult. This small investment may save you thousands.
7. Check out www.activerain.com, where the real estate community gathers to discuss all aspects of the business.
8. Doing it Yourself is great, but know your limitations. This goes for many of the important tasks that need to be done to get your home sold, from listing/ marketing, repairs, staging and even cleaning. Remember to consider the value of your own time, your expertise, hazards,and ability to obtain materials at the least cost when evaluating whether to hire and expert or DIY. Also consider that buyers may be wary of an abundance of DIY projects.
9.Once your home is in show condition, keep it like that, EVERY DAY! This is hard, but remember, living in a home for sale is different than everyday life. You never know when the right buyer is going to come by, and it won't matter that you were going to straighten up after work.
10. A word about smells. Cooking smells, trash, the diaper pail, even strongly scented air fresheners can all be powerful turnoffs to potential buyers. Also realize that you can't smell your home as others do. Your senses have been acclimated to the familiar. Again, getting that objective person to come in and.... sniff.... as well as see your home as a buyer would.
Invest in a good air cleaner, and avoid cooking strong or lingering smell foods such as onions, garlic, fish.