Preparation For Showing Your Home

Take a moment to tour your home, not as the owner, proud of your largest investment, but as a potential buyer. Look at all those little things that you as a buyer might consider important. Let your home smile a welcome to Buyers. These tips have proved invaluable to owners and merit your special attention.

Preping The Outside of Your Home

• Purchase a large mat for doorstep
• Hose down the house—especially window sills
• Keep lawn trimmed, edged, fertilized and green
• Weed around the front and back doors
• Look at all plants … prune bushes and trees.
• Keep plants from blocking windows—you can’t sell a house if you can’t see it.
• Plant blooming flowers around pathway to front door.
• Purchase or plant a container of blooming flowers.
• Remove any dead plants, shrubs, or trees. Consider using tanbark in bare spots.
• Go around perimeter of the house and move all garbage cans, discarded wood scraps, extra building materials to area where they will not be noticeable.
  • Check paint condition of the house—especially the front door and trim paint or stain front threshold.

Preping The Inside of Your Home

• Clear all unnecessary objects from furniture throughout the house.
• Keep decorative objects on the furniture restricted to groups of 1, 3 or 5 items.
• Clear all unnecessary objects from the kitchen countertops.
• If it hasn’t been used for three months … put it away!
• Clear refrigerator fronts of messages, pictures, etc. (A sparse kitchen helps the buyer mentally move their own things into your kitchen.)
• In the bathroom, remove any unnecessary items from countertops, tubs, shower stalls and commode tops. Keep only your most needed cosmetics, brushes, perfumes, etc., in one small group on the counter. Coordinate towels to one or two colors only. Scrub down bathrooms thoroughly.
• Rearrange or remove some of the furniture if necessary. As owners, many times we have too much furniture in a room. This is wonderful for our own personal enjoyment, but when it comes to selling, we need to thin out as much as possible to make rooms appear larger.
• Take down, or rearrange certain pictures or objects on walls. Patch and paint if necessary.
• Review the house inside, room by room, and: (a) paint any room needing paint; (b) clean carpets or drapes that need it; and (c) wash all windows.
• Fix all leaky faucets and toilets.
• Repairs can make a big difference. Loose knobs, holes in screens, missing screens, sticking doors and windows, and minor flaws detract from home value.
• Clean out closets + Box up excess = Make your closets look larger.
• Keep stairs and hallways free of clutter.