Selling Your Home

Are you planning to sell your home this spring? Start preparing now! Here are some suggestions to get you started:

Have Your Home Pre-Inspected by a Professional Home Inspector
One of the most common reasons a home sale falls apart (or the closing is delayed) is problems uncovered during the home inspection. Typically, price negotiations will reopen, but if the problems are beyond the buyer’s budget, they may just walk away from the deal.

If you have your home pre-inspected now, you will have the advantage of avoiding unpleasant surprises in the middle of the transaction. Plus, you’ll have the rest of winter to get repair projects out of the way. 

Get a Head Start on Curb Appeal
Most landscaping tasks will have to wait until spring, but if you have inside space and a sunny window, you can get a head start by growing your own flowers from seed. Just wait until after the last frost to plant them outside.

You can also consider touching-up any chipped paint on doors and trim, creating an outdoor seating area, or updating your front door hardware. Replacing a worn mailbox, installing new house numbers, and purchasing a new front porch doormat are more great ways to spruce up your curb appeal.

Declutter & Donate
If your home is overwhelmed with personal items, has closets bursting at the seams, and furniture blocking the flow, there is a clutter problem. Clutter sends the message to a potential buyer that your home lacks space and ample storage. Start the process now to rid your home of furniture, housewares, clothing, books, and papers that are no longer of use. It’s a win-win: you will have less to move and it will help sell your home. 

Invest in Buyers’ Favorite Features
The National Association of Home Builders surveyed prospective home buyers and learned that the top two desired features in a home are a laundry room and exterior lighting. How to get started? For your laundry room (or nook or closet), take this opportunity to add function. Consider adding a shelf, storage cabinet, or a wall-mounted drying rack.

As your luck would have it, wireless lighting has come a long way thanks to advancements in power and power storage technologies. Does your home have a path that could some extra visibility? A side yard that could use a motion sensor light? Shine some light on those darker areas to delight prospective buyers.

Whether you’re planning to sell or refinance, a home appraisal is a necessary step in determining the true value of your home. This means your home should be in the best possible condition, so it will be appraised at the highest potential value. While it may be tempting to swing for the fences with big-ticket renovations, there are smaller things you can do to efficiently raise the market value of your home.

• Start Small with a Little Spackle
  If you’ve lived in your home for any length of time, you’ve probably hung things on the walls, put up shelves, or simply had accidents that resulted in minor damage. Now is the time to repair those blemishes. Filling these holes and crevices with a little spackle and painting over the area will leave your walls looking like new. While this may not boost the value of your home, it will keep the appraiser from deducting for the damage.
• As Long as You’re Painting…
  After you’ve touched up your walls, you might want to consider freshening up the paint. Repainting worn trim and moldings around the home can give it a fresh look. Venture outside and touch up the trim around the windows and doors too. This will boost curb appeal and help you add value to the home. Any area where the paint is peeling, chipping, or simply has lost its luster should be retouched with a fresh coat.
• Do a Deep Clean
  This is also the time to really clean your home from top to bottom. If you have young children and pets, there may be odors and damage that might not be noticeable to you, but strong odors and scuffed hardwood floors will be the first things your appraiser notices. Consider hiring professionals to wax the floors, shampoo the carpets, and conduct an intensive cleaning of the entire home.
• Be the Buyer
  At some point, you should tour your home with the mindset of a home buyer. This will help you identify problems that you live with every day but just don’t notice anymore. Look for things that need to be repaired, such as a loose handrail, a leaky faucet, or a shorted electrical outlet. 

By taking the time to spruce up the home ahead of the appraisal, you may be able to increase the value by thousands of dollars. The suggestions offered here should give you a head start, but if you have additional questions on how to add more value to your home, don’t hesitate to reach out me.