If you have made the decision to sell your home in the near future, you likely understand that you have plenty of work ahead of you. What you may not realise is just how much effort you will have to put in to make your property as presentable as possible to would-be buyers. That’s true not only in terms of physical tasks, but also getting yourself into the right head space to leave the place you’ve called “home” for years.
What does it take to prep your home for a sale? Read on to find out:
1) Fix the little problems
In the course of owning a home, most people will find annoying things about their house — the light switch that doesn’t work, the step that creaks every time, etc. — they never got around to fixing. Domain noted that if you’re selling your home, now is absolutely the time to repair them. Often, these can be simple DIY jobs, but you may need to go into pocket and pay for an expert to come in as necessary.
2) Take care of the front yard
You’ve no doubt heard all about kerb appeal, but you may not understand just how much work goes into boosting it to the ideal levels. You may need to power-wash every inch of your home’s exterior, do weeks’ worth of lawn and plant care, trim back oversized tree limbs, repaint, patch cracks in the driveway, repair broken lighting fixtures and more to ensure your home has a “wow” factor for first-time visitors.
3) Get all the personal items out of view
When you are selling your home, you want to make sure potential buyers can really picture themselves living there, but that’s hard to do if you have a lot of family photos and memorabilia lining the walls and shelves, according to The Balance. For that reason, personal items should be the first things you pack up and put into storage before a showing.
4) Start thinking about the home as someone else’s
Along those lines, one of the most difficult parts of selling a home is the simple idea that you and your family will have to move out of a space where you have so many memories. Putting personal items out of sight is an important step in that process, but you may need to really give yourself time to mentally move on, well before you actually move.
5) Get the right documentation together
There are documents related to all kinds of things in your home you will need to provide to buyers, such as legal files, warranty information for appliances and so on. Homelight advised that you put in the legwork now to compile it all, and save it in one place so it’s easy to get to.
6) Give it a deep clean inside and out
When you’re selling a home, buyers are going to want to inspect every centimetre to make sure it’s in good shape. That means you can’t just cram everything you don’t want to clean or rearrange into a closet. Be prepared to clean and declutter every single room in your house from top to bottom.
As soon as you make the decision to sell your home, it’s important to partner with an experienced, reputable real estate agent who can help guide you through every step of the sales process. That’s true whether you’re selling for the first time or the fifth. At Ray White Surfers Paradise, we’re here to help, and you can enter into that process secure in the knowledge that we have closed countless sales for buyers and sellers alike. Get in touch with us today to learn more about what we can do for you.