Happy New Year! Is selling your house part of your goals for 2018? We don’t have the hottest real estate market here in southern Illinois, but here are some tips to easily help your home stand out among the others and get it sold quick.
PAINT
Paint all of your interior walls a shade of light gray. Gray is on trend right now. Especially in smaller homes or homes with small disconnected rooms, it pays to have the entire house painted a uniform color to help it feel more open and connected. Many people underestimate the power of paint, but it is worth the work to apply a fresh coat. Repaint ceilings a flat white too if they’re stained or otherwise slightly discolored. Your trim, baseboards, and doors likely need a fresh coat of white paint also if they have been dinged and scratched over time. While you’re at it, paint your kitchen cabinets white.
Trendy light gray walls+ white trim and ceilings = Sold
A sloppy paint job is worse than no paint job at all. If you’re not the attention-to-details-DIY-type, then hire a professional crew to paint your home for you.
CLEAN
This goes without saying, but clean every nook and cranny. This includes your front door, your exterior siding and facade, windows, sweep your roof, gutters, ceiling fans, baseboards, inside your kitchen cabinets, inside your dishwasher, laundry vent, inside your oven, inside your fridge, inside the microwave, and your range vent hood. Yes, potential buyers will look at these things when touring your home. One look inside your nasty microwave could scare buyers away! 🙂 What else have you been neglecting, they’re wondering!? Change out your air vent filters as well.
Not into deep cleaning yourself? Hire a professional crew to do it for you.
DECLUTTER
Take down knickknacks, remove most of your furniture, pack up out of season clothes and place these items in storage somewhere out of sight. (Or drop it all off at Goodwill.) Also, if your kitchen countertops are littered with appliances, drying racks, canisters, and whatnot, then remove all of this. Only keep a few selective items out on your kitchen counter. (Same goes for your bathroom vanity counters and shelving throughout your home.)
Example of neat and tidy bathroom shelving
Remove the Bunny Bread, cereal, chips, Keurig pods and put these items in the pantry!
Lots I could say about this bathroom, but at least declutter the counter for photos! Sidenote: Aveeno lotion seems to sell well here in southern Illinois based on many real estate photos I’ve looked at!
More knickknacks!
DEPERSONALIZE
Your house should look like a hotel to potential buyers. Remove personal wall decals, children’s name plates, and most of your family photos. It’s easier for buyers to visualize themselves owning your home without all of your personalization staring them in the face. Plus, having to remove those stick-on wall decals means work for your new homeowners. They’d have to peel those off and repaint the room when it damages the wall upon removal. Make it easy for them by removing it and fixing/repainting the surface for them ahead of time.
Your buyers probably don’t have a child between the ages of 1-10 who are into Old MacDonald.
Take down the decal! When I buy the house and go to peel that off, it will leave a residue…then I have to repaint the entire room because I won’t be able to match the paint color exactly. Btw, where is the other night stand? Otherwise it looks to be a nice room.
WHAT DOG?
Not everyone is excited about moving into a home previously filled with 3 cats and a dog. (Especially if there is carpet.) So remove evidence of your pet/s. Shampoo carpets, or replace them altogether, to make ready for your potential buyers. Go ahead and remove your collection of animal heads while you’re at it. Not everyone is a hunter.
STAGE
It’s been said that a good stager is worth their weight in gold. A well staged home sells quicker and for more money than an empty home. DIY staging is a good option here in rural southern Illinois, which may involve: adding white/light slipcovers to mismatched or time-worn furniture, throw down some large area rugs (or remove rugs that are too small for your space), think symmetry and center your beds in bedrooms, ensure each bed has two nightstands with matching lamps, etc. Consider rearranging or removing artwork on walls. Add something fresh to your rooms such as a bowl of lemons on your kitchen island, place a nice smelling candle in your bathroom, and add a vase of fresh flowers in your living room. Turn on all lights throughout the home before taking photographs and before each potential buyer arrives for a showing.
Rugs are too small, so remove them altogether or get one large area rug instead. Be sure you turn on all lights for photos and showings. Turn off the TV.
If you’re going to leave the bed frame, go ahead and make the bed up nicely. (Add a blow-up mattress if you have to.)
A bookshelf filled with books is a good thing! Though, I’d remove the knickknacks on the very top of this bookshelf, along with the pile of belongings in the floor next to the couch.
PROFESSIONAL PHOTOS
It’s all about making a great first impression! Most people shop for homes online these days and most photos online are terrible – so remember that is their first impression! Stand out among the others by hiring a professional photographer to take wide-angle shots of your beautiful home.
So it’s been on the market since 03/30/2017. Noted. I wonder what the sides of the house look like. Should have used a wider lens. These details a professional photographer would not overlook!
Blurry!! There are surprisingly so many blurry real estate photos online in our area. It’s baffling.
LISTEN TO THE MARKET
Listen to the market and react to what it is telling you. Maybe you need to lower your asking price in order to get it sold. Maybe you need to put on a new roof, and then ask for more money to account for this upgrade. Listen carefully to the responses potential buyers leave you with. Remember that once you decide to sell your house it becomes nothing other than a business transaction. We often get emotionally attached to our homes and don’t take criticism well. Let’s remember that people have different tastes and in order to appeal to the most buyers, take that into account and receive feedback with an open mind.
Happy selling!
