To Clean or Not To Clean? Tips on how to get your home sold faster in today’s market.
From the first day that you decide to sell your house to the last day when you hand over the keys, it is a cooperative effort between you and your Realtor to get your home sold fast and for the most money possible. Yes, you also play a big part in selling your home. Here are some helpful tips to make the transition from owner to seller a much easier process:
1. Mental Transition: You need to start here if you want to sell your home. Stop thinking of it as your place of zen, where you lay your head at night, etc, and start thinking of it as something that is going to put a lot of money into your pocket.
2. Remove all personal items: During showings, you want people coming through the house thinking of where their pictures will go and not feel like they’re walking though someone else’s memories.
3. Clutter-be-gone: Throw away the things you haven’t seen or used in ages – meaning, if you haven’t needed it in the past two years, chances are you’re not going to. If you are serious about selling your house, you will be serious about moving out of it. Start going through your belongings and get rid of everything that you don’t use which will help de-clutter your spaces and make your move an easier one.
4. Don’t forget to clean/organize the small spaces: Expect that when people are walking through the house, they are going to look through the closets and kitchen cabinets. Pride of ownership will be apparent to prospective buyers when they see that even the nooks and crannies have been tended to.
5. DO sweat the small stuff: Burnt out light bulbs, drippy faucets, a squeaky door, etc, are minor things that you can do yourself to get the house ready for those all important showings. The less a prospective buyer has to do, the better, as a multitude of small things can add up to one big “no”.
6. From the windows to the walls: Put yourself in the buyers shoes – if you walked into a house and saw a greasy counter top, dirty bathroom sink, bugs on the window sills, etc, what would you think? Wash or clean anything with a flat surface and dust everything else. Be proud and show off the house in the best light possible!
7. Create Rubber-necks: As important as it is to keep the interior maintained, the exterior is the first thing people will see when coming to the house. Cut the grass, collect the mail, clean up cobwebs around your porch light, etc, and you can ensure that the people walking up or driving by will continue on without the idea that the inside of the house may look as bad as the outside.
These tips can make the difference between listing your home and selling it, specially in Edmonton.
For more helpful tips and information, visit us online at FindMyHouse.ca.
Brought to you by Team Leading Edge and Re/Max Elite
Tags: Buyer, clean, Edmonton, Floor cleaning, Home improvement, Home staging, home tips, house showing, Incandescent light bulb, open house, Real Estate, Real estate broker, renovations, sell fast, Seller Tools, Window