Selling Your House: Prep List

Image Posted on February 16, 2015 Updated on February 24, 2015

You’ve decided to sell your house…now what?  Just because millions of homes are sold every year in the US alone, doesn’t mean you are born knowing how to do it right.  So we are here to help you with our:

“Selling Your House: Prep List”

• Consult a professional opinion:  The first step in preparing your house is to obtain a CMA, Comparative Market Analysis, from a local real estate professional.  If you don’t already have one, ask friends and family who have recently bought or sold a house in your town or immediate surrounding area.  A CMA will provide you with the information needed to determine your target sale price.  Put this into a spreadsheet to determine your projected profit.  This will then help you determine a budget for your preparations.   (Note:  if you are located in the Holland, Brimfield, Sturbridge, MA area, contact Kim Walker of Elmore Realty Services — she is an amazing asset you will be glad you have at work for you:  https://www.facebook.com/ElmoreRealty).
• Prepare yourself:  Letting go of the personal attachment to your home is not always easy.  However, if you have already made the decision to sell, then you are already on your way to making this someone else’s house.  Say goodbye to your home and say hello to the house that you are marketing to sell to someone else…and hello to your new future.
• Prepare the house:  This involves the multiple areas listed below.  You can tackle these areas either individually or together.  Some people take a task and go through the entire house focusing on that task – then the next task…  Others take a room and go through the multiple tasks in that room – then the next room…  However you choose to tackle the list, remember that with each step you are that much closer to your new future.  With each step take this opportunity to make the most of what you pack – this is a perfect time to decide what stays and what goes (either donated, gifted, or trashed).  A good rule of thumb is, if you haven’t used it for over a year you probably don’t need to take it with you.
  1. Take the “your” out of “your house”:  De-personalizing a house may seem heartless, but its not about your feelings anymore (refer to step 2 above), its about making this a house that potential buyers can see themselves in.  Buyers can’t see themselves in the house if it is full of images and personal items of yours.  Remove pictures, heirlooms, and other items that are all about you.
  2. Minimize the clutter:  De-cluttering is imperative to avoid distracting buyers.  It allows buyers to see the space rather than the things.  Ensure floors, walls, and flat surfaces contain only the items which make the room look like it popped from a magazine.  Remove family portraits and photo walls, clear off countertops, pack up collectables, knickknacks, and other clutter from book and display cases – the key here is “less is more”.  Only the bare necessity items are needed for staging, everything else can be put away, packed, donated, gifted, or thrown away (time to decide what is really worthy of the effort of moving it).
  3. Organize and organize more.  Time to bring the Martha Stuart out and organize everything from top to bottom.  This may sound like a lot of unnecessary work, but quite the opposite.  Think about the message you are sending buyers.  If the buyer finds your spice rack alphabetized and your clothes closet organized by type and color, imagine what the buyer is thinking about your overall maintenance of the house.  So take the time and go through every cabinet, drawer, closet, etc… needs your attention.  You are going to have to pack it all eventually so might as well go through it now, pack the extras that you want to keep but don’t need now, throw away or donate what you don’t need, and organize everything else that you need to keep out for active daily use.  If it’s summer, go ahead and pack the winter sweaters – your closets will look larger if they are not packed chuck full.  Consider the furniture you keep out as well.  Like closets, rooms look larger with less in them.  If necessary, rent a storage unit for storing the extra furniture and packed boxes.
  4. If it doesn’t stay – remove it now.  If you have any special items which you are excluding from the sale, remove them now.  Appliances, special light fixtures, etc…  Once someone sees it, they want it.  So don’t risk the loss of a sale and remove the exclusions now.
  5. Clean and new looking.  Now that everything is de-personalized, minimized, and organized, its now time to clean and tidy it all up.  Clean windows inside and out.  Scrub floors, appliances, cabinets, and ensure all surfaces are clean.  This is also the time to fix anything that’s been put off long enough.  Dripping faucets, cracked drywall, that loose tile…now is the time.  A fresh coat of paint does wonders for making things look new (interior and exterior items included).  Most of today’s buyers will get a home inspection, so ensure that everything is up to date on maintenance and in good working order.  If necessary bring in a professional to have items fixed.  Most of today’s buyers hire a professional home inspector so chances are, if it is not working properly, the buyer will ask for it to be fixed anyway so you might as well do it now.
  6. Check the curb appeal.  Don’t forget about the outside.  Weed, install fresh plants (rumor has it that yellow evokes buying), and load up the mulch.  Keep the lawn cut and hedges trimmed.  The first impression a buyer gets of your home is on the outside, so make it a good one right from the time they pull in the driveway.
  7. Perform a final walkthrough.  Now that you have finished all your hard work, go out to the street and walk onto your property as a buyer.  Walk into the house and into each room and take note of how things look from a buyers perspective.  Make any final finishing touches needed.
• Call your real estate agent.  Now it is time to call the real estate agent back to list your house for sale.  Imagine how amazing the pictures are going to look to potential buyers!  Showings are going to be even more amazing with all the work you have done!