Getting the House Ready for the Market (Part 1)

Before you envision us sticking the for-sale sign in the lawn, you need to prepare the house for all the buyers that will be viewing it. This is a crucial step in the selling process that deserves all the time and effort it requires.

Clean, de-cluttered, and staged homes sell faster and for more money. Since selling the house quickly and getting the most money you can for it is your goal, let's get started preparing the house for buyers.

Exterior

Walk outside and cross the street. Take a good, long look at your house, top to bottom. If you think it looks perfect, you either take excellent care of the house or you're too attached to it to see the flaws. When the latter is the case, grab a neighbor and ask for her honest impressions.

What you, or the neighbor, are seeing is the house's curb appeal, and it's the same thing potential buyers see when they drive up to the curb in front of your house. It's your home's first impression.

Think of curb appeal as buyer bait: Is what they see from the curb enticing enough to compel them to walk up the walkway and into the front door? You'd be surprised how many buyers we’ve had in the car who ask us to drive on after simply viewing a home from the outside.

We don't want this to happen with your house. So, grab a notepad and start taking notes on items that require your attention. Start at the top of the house (roof, gutters) and work your way down (window screens, cobwebs on the porch) until you get to the soil (dead plants, messy flowerbeds).

Treat the exterior of the house as you do the interior when deciding where to start: clean, declutter, and stage. Get rid of the kids’ toys, trash, and landscaping debris. Staging the exterior may be as simple as applying a new coat of paint to the front door or as extensive as replacing the lawn.

In our next post go in-depth on how to get the interior of the house ready for the market.