7 Must Do's Before Selling Your Home

Declutter the living space. You want to make the home feel as large as possible. If you have over-sized furniture, then you might want to sell or store it during the selling process and rent smaller furniture. Talk to your real estate agent about hiring a stager.

Have your child(ren) pick out a few toys and hide the rest, especially before any pictures are taken. Buyers like spaces that feel fresh, clean, and grown up.

The potential buyers first impression of your home will be the photos accompanying your listing. Pictures should be taken from the corner at chest height. Be sure to pay attention to the details and that nothing is visible that shouldn’t be. This includes removing clutter and toys. Open doors to showcase exteriors or to add more light to the room for the photograph. Also, turn on some lights to liven the room. Lamps work best, even hidden ones.

Is your house and yard enticing to those driving by? Plant flowers, fix the fence, touch-up the exterior paint, and mow the lawn. The details really make a difference.

Again, remove the clutter. Just because you have your microwave, coffee pot, tea maker, toaster, bread maker, deep fryer, and drying rack on the counter doesn’t mean the potential buyer wants to see it. Hide it all away, so the potential buyers can see all that counter space. Clean the grease and gunk. Make sure you detail the kitchen and it is spotless because it is a top selling feature of a home.

You don’t realize just how dirty your doors, cabinets, blinds, and windows are until you start scrubbing them down! Clean the doorknobs and light switches too. Remove all fingerprints from the doors, windows, and walls. Dirt is a turn-off and a reason people will not consider your house.

An old Realtor trick is to put an apple pie in the oven. Have you ever gone to someone’s home and noticed it has a certain smell? Maybe you couldn’t identify it, but wondered why you couldn’t smell your house. Your house has a smell. Your smell. You should wipe it out before the open house. Open the doors and use either Febreze or scented warmers. Give your house that “clean” smell.