Clutter can reduce your house’s value.
Clear away kitchen counters and keep dirty dishes out of the sink. Eliminating clutter and excess furniture makes rooms appear
larger. Recycle those stacks of old magazines and newspapers you have been saving for no good
reason. Dump all that junk you’ve accumulated over the years in your attic and basement.
Closet space sells houses! Get rid of all those clothes you don’t wear any more. Clean those closets
out. Organize them. Make them look large and roomy. Do the same with built-in drawers. Like it or
not, serious buyers will inspect your closets and drawers.
Make cosmetic improvements. Painting isn’t expensive if you do it yourself, but be careful
that the job isn’t poorly done, and be careful when selecting colors. Avoid bold colors with strong visual impact. Stick to soft whites and other neutral colors that won’t clash with most prospective buyer’s taste. If your finished basement is dark and gloomy, paint the walls and ceiling a light color.
Pay attention to everything anywhere in your house that could cause a buyer to “reduce your price”. Find them and repair them before you put it on the market. Look for any hairline cracks over doors or windows and nail pops in sheet rock. Locate any ceiling stains and repair the source of the leak. Check for windows with cracked panes or that do not open and shut properly. Watch for doors that stick, don’t close or slide properly. Observe bathrooms for signs of mildew, rust stains in sinks and toilets, missing tiles or grout, inadequate caulking around tubs. Check for drippy faucets, slow draining sinks and tubs, broken mirrors. Make certain that all appliances that remain with the house are in proper working order.
Remember. Buyers consider any of the above problems a sign of poor maintenance. More often than not they are correct. Their solutions---either don’t buy or reduce the price by thousands.
STAGING
Staging a house goes way beyond your efforts to make it look neat, clean, and well cared for. Just as stagehands set the stage for Broadway productions, you can stage your house to create a production designed to WOW prospective buyers and set your house apart from the competition.
If you have ever visited a new home development and walked through the builder’s model home, you know exactly what staging is. Builders have visual coordinators who do elaborate staging jobs:
placing furniture, using neutral colors for carpets, drapes, hanging artwork on walls, setting a beautiful table, placing a bowl of fruit on kitchen counter, having beautiful flower arrangement in the living area, and maybe an open book laying on a table beside the bed in the master bedroom. Staging a property helps prospective buyers visualize living there. It finishes the process you started with the three C’s—clean it up, clear the clutter, and make cosmetic improvements.
