Prepare to Sell Your Home
Prepare to Sell Your Home
You’ve decided to sell your home–congratulations! You’ll probably have some mixed feelings as you say goodbye to your former home, but look forward to the future with Galindo Group’s top tips for selling your home!
Preparing Your Home’s Exterior as a Seller
- Landscaping: It’s the first thing your prospective buyers are going to see, especially if they show up early to the showing!
- Make sure shrubs, trees, and gardens are all properly cleaned up and pruned.
- Mow the lawn regularly, and keep edges neat.
- Pressure Wash the Siding: This is the second thing people will see when they arrive at your home, looking to buy.
- Dirt can build up on siding over the years–even if you maintain it properly!
- Pressure washing is the easiest way to make your house shine from the very start.
- Gutters: Clean them!
- If your gutters are dirty, prospective buyers will wonder what else is dirty.
- Windows: Get them cleaned professionally, inside and out.
- Repairs: This is a simple step that a lot of sellers miss.
- Have the roof inspected and any missing shingles replaced.
- Repair any holes, missing trim, broken window screens, etc.
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Make Your Interior Sell Like A Dream Home
- Repairs: This is your first step toward selling your house for the amount you want.
- Replace broken fixtures, windows, and appliances.
- Fill in nail holes properly.
- Fix any holes or cracks in the walls, ceilings, and floors.
- Check all the drains and plumbing.
- Make sure all your electrical wiring is up to code.
- Evaluate paint choices: Now that you’re made all of those repairs, it’s time to take a fresh look at your walls!
- Neutralize any bold colors by painting over them with white or gray. This allows your future buyer to envision their color choices, not yours!
- Is the paint dingy, cracked, worn, or otherwise in less-than-perfect condition? Time for a repaint!
- Repainting is the cheapest way to give your home that “brand-new” feel.
- Remove clutter and organize: When you’re selling your home, you want other people to feel like it could be theirs.
- Give them room to imagine their future! Get rid of any personal pictures, knick knacks, or anything else that reminds them that someone else lives here.
- Clutter, whether in the closet or out in the open, signals to possible buyers that there isn’t enough storage space. Not good! If you really can’t part with it, get a storage unit until you move.
- Your home should now look like a display model in a large store. Minimal, tasteful, and focused on one thing: welcoming the new owners.
- Clean and neutralize odors: Your home is organized, de-cluttered, repaired, and freshly painted. But is it clean?
- Time to scrub! Get the heavier cleaning out of the way first: tubs, tile, kitchen, railings, fans, and seldom-used corners of the house. Get those spiderwebs in the lighting fixtures, too!
- Use a top-down mentality for a total cleaning. Start at the top of every room, and work your way down.
- Deep clean any carpets–professionally.
- Clean your hardwood floors, and clean them well. Get in between cracks and in those corners!
- Finally: keep it clean. You’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting, but now it needs to stay that way, through showings and weekends!
- Improve lighting: Your home probably looks even better than it did when you moved in. One final step that can totally transform your home: lighting!
- Open all shades, windows, and curtains. Let that light in through your freshly washed windows!
- Evaluate the lighting fixtures in every room: is there enough light? Avoid dim lighting but also avoid fluorescent or harsh lighting.
- Make the light as natural as possible.
Look Through Your Home Like a Buyer
Whew! You just did a ton of work, and now the finishing touches: walk through your home like a total stranger. Is there anything that seems too personal? Too bold? Too–anything? Get rid of it. You want your home to be a beautiful blank slate, so prospective buyers can see themselves in it.
Overwhelmed by these tips? Need a little extra help selling your home, or preparing it for selling? Contact Galindo Group today! Improving and selling homes is what we do best!
