With so many homes on the market today, it’s essential to present your property the best you can before listing. If you don’t meet the standard of the other properties in your area, your home will likely take far longer to sell. For your convenience, we’ve collected a list of simple and affordable things you can do to elevate your home, though you’ll need the help of your family or tenants to do so successfully.
1. Make the Necessary Repairs
Your home needs to be in the best condition possible. Ask your family or tenants to go through the house and make a comprehensive list of any outstanding repairs that should be done before listing. This will typically include:
- Cracked Windows
- Leaky Roof/Faucets
- Broken Appliances
- Flickering/Burnt Out Lights
Taking care of these issues will go a long way towards selling your home, as even the smallest flaws can put off buyers.
2. Do a Thorough Clean
For this step, you’ll definitely need everyone living in the home to participate. A thorough clean doesn’t just mean mopping floors and straightening up shelves. Every part of the home should be sparkling, including the floors, countertops, and appliances.
Also, ask everyone in the household to organise their closets and drawers so potential buyers can make a proper assessment of how much storage space is available.
3. Maintain the Lawn
The curb appeal of a home is a major factor in determining how many people will come to view it. Maintaining your lawn will go a long way with attracting buyers, as overgrown lawns, broken off branches, and piles of wet leaves don’t tend to leave the best first impression.
Thankfully, if you have a few family members helping you out, it’s not too difficult to maintain a nice lawn. Create a schedule to get everyone involved in flower planting, bush pruning, garden weeding, and regular lawn mowing.
4. Depersonalise
Before showing your home to potential buyers, ask your family or tenants to declutter and depersonalise their space as much as possible. This means temporarily taking down photos, unique knickknacks, and other personal items that might prevent buyers from projecting their own life and belongings into the home. You can store all the things you’ve taken down in your car, a friend’s house, or a rented storage unit for safekeeping.
5. Repaint the Walls
Repainting your walls is a relatively straightforward way of increasing your house’s visual appeal to buyers. That said, it’s only necessary if you have walls with chipped paint or in less appealing colours.
For example, maybe your son convinced you to paint his bedroom a bright orange shade that clashes with the flooring. Repainting that room a more neutral colour will depersonalise it, making it much more appealing to buyers. Repainting the walls in your home can be a huge undertaking, so we highly recommend getting your family involved.
If your tenants have painted the walls unappealing colours, ask them to restore the walls’ original colour before their lease is up (if your tenancy agreement allows you to do so).
6. Set Up a Place to Stay
It can take a lot of time and hard work to prepare a house before listing it, which is then followed by a potentially lengthy listing period. For a lot of people, especially those with young children, it’s too challenging to live at the home while trying to maintain it for buyers.
If you think this would be an issue for you, consider putting your family up at a hotel or with other family members temporarily. It never hurts to have a backup plan just in case.
Don’t Know What Your Home Needs?
If you’re unsure about what repairs or changes your home may need to compete with other homes on the market, you may benefit from hiring a real estate agent. A qualified and experienced real estate agent will have no problem identifying problem areas inside and outside the home that may deter buyers.
Talk to R&R Property today!
