To prepare a house for sale make necessary repairs, clean, repaint, make adjustments & contact a real estate agent to increase the curb appeal of your house. Selling your house works very differently than selling some other objects. You can just hand over the item to the buyer and take the payment by cash or through an e-bank, and there will be no problem.
But when it comes to a house, you need to do a lot more. Apart from getting all the legal papers of the property ready and handing them to the new owner, some other things need to be done. And if you want to fetch a good price then you have to prep up your house as well.
Why Prepare Your House Before Selling?
Simple, to make it more attractive to the customers, so they are willing and eager to buy your house. The main reason behind a person selling his house is mostly money.
The current owner may need some hard cash and has to sell his house. But how can you sell your house if no one is interested in it in the first place?
So, to attract more customers, get better deals, and increase the overall value of your house, you need to prepare your house and make it as appealing as possible.
If your house is not prepared enough for the buyers, they will likely overlook your house, even if you reduce the price of the house to a bare minimum. The customers do not always look for money; they want a quality service and if your house cannot provide that, then it will be hard to sell.
Things To Consider Before Preparing Your House For Sale
Before you jump off and start preparing your house with new colors and repair works, you must follow some basic guidelines.
If your house fulfills those requirements, then you do not need to worry any further. However, if your house fails to follow the guidelines, then get working on those factors as soon as possible.
Here is the list of basic guidelines that you must consider before preparing your house.
1. Have A Clean Surrounding
No customers want to buy or even look at a house that is poorly maintained. Dust, mold, weed, fungi can make the house look unclean and filthy and make the owner of the house look irresponsible.
Spend a little on some effective cleaning tools like a high-quality vacuum cleaner for vinyl floors, scrub brushes, and brooms.
But even if the insides of the house are cleaned to perfection, those unpleasant surroundings of the house make it less appealing in the eyes of the buyer. So you must have the outside surroundings clean too.
2. Consider Repainting
Your choice of color might not be the same as the buyers. If you have funky bright colors in your house, buyers might not want to put up with that as not everyone likes bright color combinations.
Just to be on the safe side you may have to repaint the place. If you have enough experience then you can do it yourself or call in painters to get it done faster.
3. Think Like A Buyer
To attract more buyers, you must think like a buyer. Do you need to ask yourself questions like what are the unique characteristics of this house? What is the value of the house? What am I getting for the price? How well is the house organized? What is the overall condition of the house?
These are all the questions you need to ask yourself to understand the mind of a buyer.
4. Reduce Any Extra items
The buyer might have different ideas for the interior of your house, so it is unnecessary to keep all the furniture in the house.
Reduce some furniture that has very little value and does not impact the price of the house that much. Having too much might also make the buyer uncomfortable in buying the house.
5. Make Necessary Repairs
Although some repair works can be avoided as they are not important, some other ones might be quite critical.
These crucial repair works must be done as soon as possible before any buyer comes to visit the house. Dented floor, wall, faded paint, and damaged pipelines can create a negative image of your house to the potential buyer.
As the repair work is going, also make some small adjustments and some minor tweaks, which might be appealing to the buyers and make them more eager to buy the house.
6. Get In Contact With A Reputable Real Estate Agent
If you are struggling to find the right customer, then just look for a well-renowned real estate agent, and they can do all the hard work for you.
They know about all the trends in house selling, demand for houses, and can show you the techniques to increase the curb appeal of your house.
Consider all these factors and make a separate budget for them.
4 Steps To Preparing Your House For Selling
Now that you have all the guidelines set, you can work on your preparation. Preparing the house is not an easy task and you need to be very careful in every step.
Otherwise, it will do more harm than good. So here are a few steps you can take for preparing your house for sale.
Step 1. Repair Any Damaged Part
No one wants to buy something that is damaged. So the first thing that you need to do is to get the house repaired and make it flawless. This repair work includes repairing walls, floors, pipe leaks, or pipe damage.
Damaged pipes can be a huge problem, so getting them repaired as soon as possible is the best option. Then slowly you can shift your focus into other things like window panes, and door frames.
These are the home improvement projects you must complete to get a good price.
Step 2. Put Unwanted Items For Sale
As you are selling your house, you will not be needing many items and furniture. As mentioned before, you need to reduce the number of furniture for the buyer.
So, selling this furniture could give you enough money to compensate for the repair cost.
Or if you are feeling generous enough, you can donate the furniture to someone who needs them and make their day.
If you are feeling even more enthusiastic about selling your house, you can use the money from selling old furniture and buy newer, more advanced furniture.
This way, not only will it increase the value of your house but also make your house a more viable option for the buyers.
Step 3. Paint The Whole House Once More
Now that you have uncluttered your house you can begin repainting it. First, consult with your real estate agent. If he gives you the green signal then decide on a neutral color that is preferred by almost everyone.
We recommend painting it white because it is a neutral color and if the buyer wants, he can easily repaint the place according to his taste.
There will also be some areas of the house which may have lost their former bright color. They will appear gloomy and faded. To bring new life to them, you should also repaint these faded areas and any other part that needs to be painted.
Step 4. Make Small Adjustments
Now that all the major preparations are done, you can get on with smaller ones that although are not crucial but still can put a positive impact on the mind of the buyer.
As they are not that crucial, only focus on them when you have enough money and are willing to spend on these small adjustments.
These smaller optional yet useful adjustments can upgrade your curb appeal. So, the adjustments that you can make include:
- Mow the lawn, get rid of weeds, and make the grass greener and equal in length.
- Repair any damaged windowpane or door frames.
- Wipe clean your windows so they are transparent.
- Add some plants around the house, the best option would be to put hanging plants on the house wall.
- Have a new welcome doormat in front of the main door and put flowers or potted plants beside the doors or mat.
- Either repaint or replace your mailbox and your garage door, whichever suits the need.
Now that everything is set in place, your house is fully prepared and ready to be sold. All that is left is to invite the buyer to your house, give them a small tour of the house and convince them that they will not regret the decision of buying this house.
Final Thoughts
Desperate times call for desperate measures and many people have to sell their house to fight these tough times. To ensure that the house is sold properly and also at a reasonable price, you need to prepare the house. This increases the value of your house, and the buyers will be willing to pay a fair amount of money for your house.
Hopefully, this guide has shown you how to prepare the house and increase the overall value of your house. However, if you need to sell in a hurry, you also consider selling your property in as-is condition to a real estate investor like Your Trusted Home Buyer.
