For Sale By Owner – Getting Your House Ready to Sell
June 19, 2008
Preparing your home for sale is kind of like getting ready for a date. You spend a lot of time getting ready but when those first suitors walk through the door you’re really glad you put in the time.
Preparing the House
Our neighbors spent several weekends organizing, repairing, and cleaning to get their house ready to put on the market. Of course this is something you’ll need to do whether the home is for sale by owner or via a realtor. Here are some of the things they did:
- Had a garage sale to “clean out”
- Moved all leftover “garage clutter” into our garage
- Greased squeaky doors
- Fixed leaky faucets
- Patched holes in the wall
- Re-painted several rooms
- Planted new bushes
- Trimmed & mowed regularly
Home Enhancement Tips
One of the realtors that they talked to when researching the market volunteered to walk through their home and point out anything that could change to help improve the likelihood of a sale.
She recommended replacing several of the light fixtures since that’s one thing that most people notice and it’s a relatively inexpensive way to give a room a new look. She also suggested they change out their beat up old brass colored door knobs to a cleaner chrome color.
Getting Your Home Ready to Sell – Summary
This part of the pre-sale process can be a lot of work and requires a lot of attention to detail. Every house needs a little work but all the little things add up in the end to make your home more attractive to buyers. Focus your time on the changes that have the most impact on potential owners. Next time in the For Sale by Owner Tips series we’ll take a look at marketing your home.
All posts by Ben Edwards
I always think that getting rid of most of the clutter can really make a room look more attractive. Not only will it look roomier and cleaner but it will allow the potential vendors to use their imagination and think how they would put their own stamp on the room.