How do you get a home ready for sale?

For sale in Cureton
Listed by Gina Lorenzo
704.575.7605

Getting a home ready for sale does not have to cost a lot of money. Focusing on the right things will help reduce a seller's time on the market and will result in a higher sales price.

DO spend money on:

Cleaning your home. Sometimes the simple things get overlooked by a seller. A clean home gives a message that the seller cares about the home and has maintained it. Making a home super clean is one of the most important components to staging for success. Do not overlook washing the windows! Windows never get more attention than when the home is on the market.

Paint: Painting is relatively inexpensive but adds a lot to brighten up a home. Neutralize rooms that have been personalized but avoid going "all white". Buyers are not looking for a "sterile" experience. Ask a painter about new color trends or look on Houzz for neutral color ideas.

Backsplash in kitchen: Dress up a kitchen with a new glass backsplash. It's an inexpensive way to give a tired kitchen a facelift usually for under a $1,000. Lowes has a great tile selection and will even come out and install it for a very reasonable price.

Front Door: Give the front door a fresh coat of paint and make sure the handle set looks shiny. Buyers spend time waiting on the porch for the Realtor to open the door. It gets a good "look" before Buyers even make inside the house.

Do NOT spend money on:

Improvements that are not readily apparent on a walk through. This is not the time to upgrade the hot water heater from a 50 gallon to a 75 gallon if the 50 gallon is functioning fine.

The Garage: If you always talked about drywalling the garage and putting an epoxy floor down but never got around to it, don't do it now! Most buyers only consider the size of the garage and often women don't even give it so much as a glance. I find that sellers love to spend a lot of time "organizing" and "cleaning" the garage when they are getting ready to go on the market. My advice is to use that time and energy on the interior of the home and forget about the garage. It wont affect a buyer's decision to buy the house and chances are their garage doesn't look much better.

Cabinets: Replacing cabinets is expensive and often requires also replacing tops, sinks and the kitchen faucet. I advise sellers to have their cabinets painted if they are oak or dated looking. It is a fraction of the cost of new cabinets and can add a lot of appeal to an otherwise dated kitchen or bathroom.