What to Expect: Preparing Your Home for Sale

When purchasing a home, the buyer devotes most of their time and energy from getting under contract to closing. For a seller, however, it’s quite the opposite. Most of the work you will do as a seller happens before your house even gets to market since the majority of your time and energy is spent prepping your home for sale. We have to make sure that your home looks great from the moment a potential buyer first sees the pictures online, to when they are physically touring your home. So let’s talk about what to expect when preparing your home for sale. 

The Honey-Do-List

Most sellers have an idea of the things that need to be done to their home before going to market. But before you start tearing down walls or even applying a fresh coat of paint, it’s best to give us a call first. Part of our role in the selling process will be to let you know where you should invest and what fixes or repairs we think will get you the best return on your investment. 

During your listing appointment, we are going to walk through your home with you and evaluate what we think needs to be done to get your house prepared for the market. There may be things in your home that bother you but we don’t notice, and there may be things that we notice that you have become completely blind to. So during this appointment, we will compare our lists and discuss where to invest prior to listing your home. 

Our primary focus will be the buyer's experience when they see the home. Can they picture themselves in it? Does the home look like it’s been cared for and invested in? We want to showcase the quality of your home. 

Whatever you are not able to do yourselves, we will reach out to a contractor for a quote on the project. Once we have that quote, we will discuss whether or not the update or repair will yield a return on the investment. 

The majority of items we recommend to sellers are decluttering, painting, and light landscaping. More than likely sellers will not have to do any major renovations, but regardless we will always weigh the cost versus the potential profit. And remember, you can choose not to do something or anything we recommend. We will provide recommendations on what we believe will help you get your home sold for the best price, but ultimately, you get to decide what to do or not do. 

Decluttering

99% of our sellers need to do some level of decluttering in their homes. Decluttering often involves things like cleaning off your refrigerator, cleaning off and removing some items from surfaces and countertops, and maybe even removing some furniture to make a space look and feel larger. Too much stuff can be a distraction from the buyer getting to see your home and themselves in it. Decluttering is free to you, so valuable for selling your home, and definitely worth your time. 

Some sellers will shove their stuff in closets when trying to declutter. While this typically works for picture day, remember that buyers will most likely be opening up your closets when they walk through the home. So, if closets are overstuffed, this sends a message to the buyer that there isn’t enough storage in your home. Rather than shoving your stuff in a closet, the garage is a great place to store things that you need to get out of the house. 

Staging

Once you’ve cleared out and decluttered your home, we are going to provide some finishing touches through staging. Staging can range anywhere from full-scale furniture, art, rugs, etc. to smaller touches like adding some fake plants or white towels for presentation. If you are going to live in the home while selling, we are going to work with you to make sure that your home is set up in a way that appeals to as many buyers as possible. We might bring in some pillows, plants, rugs, or additional artwork to put the finishing touches on the home and to ensure that your home is looking its best. Staging always pays off both in photos and showings.

Photo Day

The majority of buyers are searching for homes online before they come to see a home in person. The photos we take of your home can make or break your listing, so photo day is the highest priority for your home to look perfect. On the day we take photos, we are going to bring in a professional photographer who specializes in real estate. We are going to ask that you and your pets vacate the home for a couple of hours while we work with the photographer and micromanage the entire process to make sure everything looks perfect. We want to make sure that the photos are appealing to buyers searching online and then deliver when they come to see it in person. 

Another thing we will do on photo day is take a 3D tour of your home. 3D tours are one of our key marketing tools. These are a great way to save buyers time who just don’t like things that can’t be changed (like the floor plan), and it’s also allows for those that love the home to virtually walk through it a few more times without having to physically displace you each time for a showing. 

Once photo day is over, the pet bowls can come back out and the coffee maker we made you stow away can return to the counters as we get ready to start the showings!

Preparing your home for the market is a lot of work. But the hard work is worth it and will surely pay off. If you’re ready to start the homebuying or selling process, give us a call. We’d love to help you take that next best step for you and your family. 

Until next time,

Brianna and Keelie