Draft 2 of 7 Easy Steps to Make Your House Ready to SELL

  

youtube

blog

podcast

Introduction: Preparing Your House for Sale

Seven things you need to do to get your house ready to sell. 

Understanding Market Realities

You must understand why this is important. Woe is the seller who thinks their house is worth a million dollars and they haven't done a thing to make it presentable or sellable. You can put your house on the market. Absolutely. Don't do it.

Darn thing. You're going to get what? The market will bring you right. The seller nor the agent will ever dictate what the price is. 

Importance of Pricing and Attracting Buyers

You can negotiate it and hope to get that way up. But the best way to get your house sold quickly, especially in our area is to make sure that listed low. So you bring in a lot of buyers.

That being said, unless you're a market maker and these big luxury houses are market makers, you want to bring the market to you. So you want to make it attractive. And comparable to other houses that they might be looking at. 

Home Buyer Checklist and Comparisons

Which is why we have this home buyer checklist. When you look at houses, buyers are not just going to go to your house.

They're going to go to four, five, six, seven houses. When you have a checklist like this, you can print it out, go to those different houses, and compare. In contrast, differences between your house and the competing neighbors, houses that are for sale based on price condition, location, and everything else.

Condition and Presentation Tips

Condition is one of the most important things, which is why we have this home inspection checklist. You want to make it look like a model home. If you're going to sell your house, use the rule of three, no more than three things on any surface, the wall, the shelves, everything. Every surface Maximum of three.

So you see, there's a little picture of me and my son there, and there's two little awards that I got. It's all about making it look like it's presented. 

Decluttering and Deep Cleaning

Declutter, get rid of everything. If you looked at my closet, you would be completely freaked out as to how messy it is. If I ever went to sell my house, I would bring in a bunch of boxes, throw 90 percent of it in there, and make it look presentable.

Easy as that is, but it's true. Deep clean your home. And that goes without saying, I just swept up my floor. I have to do it every day because I have a husky and she sheds a pillow of hair every day, but it goes even deeper than that. You want to get into the crevices of your windows. If you're going to get all the cobwebs out, hire a professional cleaning service to do all the deep cleaning, the tubs, the caulking, toilets, the appliances, all the different corners, everything, the windows quick thing on that is when you're washing the windows, take the screens off, wash the screens, make sure that they're in good condition and then.

Put them aside in the garage because you're going to let in that much more light and you don't have to risk putting them back in and then breaking them. 

Fixing and Painting Essentials

No house is perfect. No house is perfectly square. No house is perfectly level or plum. I'll guarantee you that appliances break, light bulbs break, faucets need to be fixed, and other little things.

I can tell you, I have a list of about 20 or 30 things that I need to get done around the house. It's a busy time of the year for me, so not doing anything. I'll get around to it eventually. Painting is smart. If you can't touch it up because the wall's faded or chipped, fix up your house, and make it look good.

If there are chips and you paint it, and then it's a different color because the wall has faded over time, paint the whole wall, but do paint, clean it up, and see what you can do. My pantry door has kid grease all over it when they put their hands on it. I have to clean it, but it's getting to the point where it's wearing down.

So I'm going to put a fresh coat of paint on it. 

Staging Your Home for Sale

Eventually, try staging your house again. The rule of three, make it look big, airy, and bright. You want to make sure every ounce of light comes in and you have it decluttered. Take excess furniture out, and give it a purpose. This is an office. Obviously, I would downgrade these to one or two pieces of furniture, stage it up, and make it presentable as part of the decluttering and depersonalizing.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

I'm Vito with Abottano. Thanks for watching. We'll see you out there.