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Cleaning, Remodeling and Staging Tips – How To Sell Your House

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When it comes to selling your home there are some best kept secrets you should know that will catapult your listing to the top of the buyers' minds. There's more to your home make-over than simply just vacuuming and putting a sign up! Deciding what you would like to spend your time effort and resources on is the first big step to prepare your home for sale.

Clean and Tidy

If you were to ask a real estate agent what they considered to be the most important factors to doing your home make-over that sell it the first thing he or she would tell you is to make sure that the home is immaculately clean and tidy. This is paramount. Start the process of with getting rid of any clutter which also serves to help make your packing a lot easier when it comes to moving to your new place. Get in touch with the local charity stores and throw out the things you haven't even used in years and years. You will feel so much more free when you do this first simple task. Once you have some more room in your closets you can start to reduce the other clutter in the house by storing your personal possessions, such as family photos, in the newly cleaned out closets. This will serve to help the buyer focus on your home and not on your personal belongings. It is important that the prospective buyers see the 'bones' of the property and is not distracted by any unnecessary clutter or personal belongings to the present owner. Such items that distract are as follows: children's drawings, family photos, fridge magnets, clothes, ornaments, and art collections. Putting these items in the closets will give the room an airy feel. If you have children make sure that their possessions are stored away. Even get them involved in the process as this can be fun for them and also will settle them if they are a little disturbed by the house move. If the house has storage areas make sure that these are as empty as possible as prospective buyers love to see the storage 'potential' that these spaces have to offer. If they are crammed with 'stuff' they will look much smaller and less appealing. The same goes for the house itself. If the rooms are 'crammed' with 'stuff' they too will seem much smaller to prospective buyers.

Remodeling

Make necessary repairs to the property. If there are dripping taps then these can distract the buyers and also could reduce your offer price as the prospective buyers will think that the home has more wrong with it than it actually does. Buyers (particularly female buyers) will make decisions within the first few minutes on whether they want to live in this space or not. Therefore you only have one chance to make the first impression last! Sprucing up your home for sale doesn't necessarily mean that you have to completely remodel the kitchen or bathroom. Making some small updates for instance buying some drawer pulls and some of the smaller accessories may just be enough to make the big difference. Sometimes the larger investment won't be to the potential buyer's taste. What one seller chooses as stylish and may be very expensive could be ripped out and remodeled by the new buyer. Essentially real estate agents will tell you that it is 'food and water' that sells houses. I.e. kitchens and bathroom. Very simple. Investments into these rooms will be realized in the final sale price of the home. Investments in to the other rooms does not have the same impact as putting your resources into the kitchen and bathrooms. Try and keep these renovations neutral and simple. Any 'must haves' because it suits your 'taste' may not be to everyone's liking and may even serve to put off potential buyers of your home. Just remember that the value of your 'improvements' is relative to the value of your home and in turn relative to the current market conditions in your neighborhood. Make some good comparisons with other houses in your area before spending large amounts on renovations. If there is a home next door which is very similar to yours which had a remodeled kitchen then this could give you a clue that you might need to renovate your kitchen to the same style and taste as they did to sell yours. Analyze the size of the kitchen relative to the home that sold and make some comparisons yourself and this should help you with making the decisions of where to invest your precious resources to get the biggest bang for the buck with your renovations. The National Association of Realtors did a study which revealed that the number of bathrooms in a home can significantly increase the selling price of the home, with the results of the analysis showing that the addition of each full bathroom added 24% to the final selling price. So if you are considering adding an extra bath then this may be the best time to do this. Sellers often expect to get back what they spent on their remodeling of the house 'with bells on'. This is not necessarily the case though. You should know that money spent on renovations of a home for sale on average brings back 90% of the money if it was a bath remodel and 77% if it is a kitchen remodel. Therefore it is important to decide if this remodel is necessary in the first place and if it is going to add value to the overall 'package' of the home. Finishing what you start is also important when it comes to remodeling your home. There is nothing more off-putting to the buyers than seeing a renovation half done. Or, seeing the kitchen done and the bathrooms are clearly out of date. It is perhaps an all or nothing situation. Making the outdated bathroom stand out like a sore thumb will only serve to getting a clause in you offer contract which states that the seller will cover the cost of this 'improvement'. Perhaps it would have been better to have left the kitchen alone than to just have done the kitchen alone! Choosing the color of your rooms is equally important to showing the home in its best light. Light colors will open up a room whereas dark colors will close it down and make it feel much smaller. Pure whites can be harsh so perhaps a tint of color in your white can keep the room light and warm. Try and avoid bright colors. Bright colors are not to everyone's taste and may alienate potential buyers. Brighten up and neutralize. When it comes to painting the exterior of your home take a look at the neighbors' homes and ask yourself if your color choice will distract from the style of your home.

Staging

Finally, staging your property has been agreed by many experts to bring the highest bang for the buck when it comes to investing in your home make-over-tips-that-sell. 'Staging' is the art of moving objects around the room, adding and subtracting these objects in such a way as to make the room feel as 'roomy' as possible. Staging neutralizes the furniture and art tastes. A good stager will emphasize the best assets of the space and will hide the worst. Staging is an art form which is rather misunderstood. Sellers will often go off and spend $50,000 on their new bathroom to little effect when the rest of the home is a let-down in the buyers' eyes. However the sellers could have spent $1500 when they came to sell the home and had a ten times return on their investment in the final sales price. For example it is interesting to note how 'an old lady's house for sale' attracts the bargain hunters as it looks in need of 'modernization' when this furniture could have been removed and replaced with modern furniture and art and the place looks 'so much more valuable'. See the point?

About the Author

Russell Sharp MBA is an author of real estate related articles and is also a top seller of Vancouver townhouses in Canada. He loves to share his passion for real estate with others and his home selling tips have been published the world over.


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