Get your home ready for listing with these tips!

There’s no way around it: selling a home is stressful, here are 5 things to do before selling your house. There’s so much to do and think about prior to listing, from completing urgent repairs on your property to making your moving plans. Once listed, you need your home to sell quickly at its maximum potential value. 

In this article, we’ll review the best ways to get your home ready for listing and sale. From improving your home’s curb appeal to cleaning and staging, we’ll go over just how to get started.

Make the right first impression

For homebuyers, it’s hard to move past a bad first impression. If your home’s exterior looks old and its yard is overgrown and messy, it will color people’s perceptions of your property before they even walk in the front door. Your exterior is going to stand out, like a sore thumb, in all of your online listings and photos. 

It’ll be the first thing people notice when they pull up to visit your home. Curb appeal matters, and if you’re planning on listing, you need to think about that first impression and whether it’s helping—or hurting—your attempts to sell.

If your home’s exterior paint is chipping, peeling, or fading, you’re probably overdue to have your home repainted. Talk to an experienced exterior painter in your area to get a quote for this work. New exterior paint can really transform your home. 

Next, turn your attention to your lawn and landscaping. Get a landscaper out to trim everything down and clean up trees, bushes, and grass. Finally, make sure you get the small details right. From your porch lights to your fence, everything—from the front of the home on in—needs to look great.

Clean up the inside of your home

For most homeowners, this is the most difficult stage of the selling process. After all, it’s hard to keep a home clean when you’re currently living in it. That challenge is only multiplied if you have children or pets. If you start the cleaning process too early, your home could become messy again by the time you list. 

We recommend you start with deep cleaning areas of the home that don’t see much traffic. This includes vacuuming the fan blades, washing the windows, cleaning up guest rooms, and making general repairs around your home. Just as was the case outside, you should dedicate a weekend to repainting the inside of your home: a fresh coat of wall paint can make its rooms look much newer and more inviting.

Get your home to its cleanest point right before your realtor takes photos. It’s important that these photos show off your home’s best side. Talk to your realtor about what they’d recommend for these photos, and whether or not home staging is the right move for your sale.

Stage your property

When it comes down to it, successfully selling a home is about making it easier for the buyer to imagine themselves living in the space. Unless they’re buying an investment property, no one is ever going to purchase a home that they can’t picture themselves living in. Yet, this sometimes comes into conflict with a home’s current decor and furniture. Large furniture, for instance, can make rooms feel small and crowded. Outdated decor reminds buyers of the property’s age. Home staging, in essence, is the art of presenting the best-possible version of the home to potential buyers, allowing them to easily see themselves happily living there.

With the help of a professional home staging company, you and your realtor can transform your home into a modern, appealing property that is far more competitive with other properties in your area and at your price range. This helps your home sell faster and—by virtue of getting more offers—at-or-above your asking price. If your home has been “stuck” on the market for weeks with little-to-no traction, talk to your realtor about whether or not home staging might help.

Call on professionals to help you

Preparing a home for listing is a lot of work. Your life is already busy enough. You may not have several weekends to dedicate to cleaning, repairs, and staging. Here’s the thing, though: you don’t have to go it alone. From general contractors to home staging pros, there’s a number of people you can call on to help you out and get your home ready to sell. Whenever you’re looking for a local pro, talk to your realtor: they may have experienced, trusted professionals they can recommend.

For a more in-depth look at your next steps toward listing, check out this helpful infographic.