How to Prepare your House for Sale!

One of the most important thing to do when you decide to sale your house is to prepare it for potential buyers. This is where I am and where my story starts.

Since I am a Real Estate agent, I will be listing my house myself. However, for now, I have to wear the seller hat and act the same way I will tell my sellers to act. Obviously, I am like any other seller, Excited, Stressed and most of all Overwhelmed will all there’s to do to make my house ready. With the idea of reducing my emotions at a minimum, I’m gonna work with the same 10 steps I”ll advice my clients to follow.

8 steps to prepare your house for sale

1. Do a Walk Through

The first thing to do is a thorough walk through of my house as if I was a buyer. I have to look at everything, everywhere objectively because the buyer will. Everything that will bother me if I was looking to buy my house will have to be noted and taking care of.

I’ll write down every repair, every wall that need to be painted and everything that shouldn’t be there and clutters the place. Everything I see or think about while walking around will be noted, order is no important it just need. to noted so it’s not forgotten.

2. Make a list

After my walk trough, I end up with a pretty disorganize notepad. Everything I saw in the order I saw it is written down and now it’s time to sort it all out.

The way I do it is by using groups and then rank by priority in each group.
Groups goes as follow:

• Repairs, from the more important to the less.
• Painting, which room must be done and which one will be a plus but not absolutely necessary.
• Excess furnitures and other things I don’t use anymore.
• Personal stuff like family pictures and kiddos souvenirs and gifts.
• Everything that needs to be deep cleaned
• All the rest I don’t have a specific group for

3. DECLUTTER the house

Decluttering is for sure at the top of my list of advice. Not only it makes the house looks cleaner and well maintained but it make it looks bigger too. By clearing my space of all the extra stuff it makes it look so much more open. Also, it’s easier for buyers to see themselves and their furnitures when the place is cleared of all the superfluity.

Here’s some tips to help you declutter and choose what should stay and what should go:

• If you didn’t use it in the last 2-3 years there’s a good chance you will not use it again.
• If it’s in a bad shape, overused and seen way better days, it shouldn’t be expose to be admire by buyers.
• Don’t use the closets as storage unit when you declutter. I guarantee you, buyers will look in every closet, cabinets and drawers you have. Same with your basement and garage.

[optin-monster slug=”aycrzauoqi7p0qjvwmyr”]

4. Sale, Donate or Toss

While I am decluttering my heart out I have to make choices. Some of them are hard but they need to be done.

To begin with, going through my mountain of stuff, I have to ask myself the following questions:

• When did I use it last? How long ago?
• Will I buy it again today?
• Is it something I am attached to?
• Am I keeping it out of guilt? Because I feel I have to?
• Does it worth the space it takes and the time to clean it and move it?
• How many of it do I have?
• Do I have something else that will do the same job?

Depending of the answers, I’m making 3 piles. First, the Sale pile, the best will be to do a garage sale but during the winter in Pittsburgh it’s not a winner idea. Instead, I will try to sale it all on Craig’s List and Letgo. Second, the Donate pile, for all the stuff I have, in good shape but hardly salable for different reasons, Goodwill is the right thing to do. It may take many travel there but it worth it if it helps someone. Finally, the Toss pile, it’s not even a pile since it’s going right in the garbage can. When moving it makes absolutely no sense how many things we found that we can’t understand why we still have them. Broken stuff we never repaired, even if we were convinced we were going too. Old receipts for things we don’t have anymore. Old marketing pieces you brought back from the Canine and Kennel show 5 years ago, and so much more…

It’s time to clear the place and get rid of all the unnecessary. One important point to remember is that buyers like a home that looks open. To get there we need to keep the minimum possible to create the feeling that the rooms are bigger. In addition, it makes it easier for buyers to see their furnitures and decor if the space is not too messy and packed.

5. Taking care of the repairs

Now it’s time for repairs, by far my less favorite step of all but surely one of the highest importance. Most of the time, the reason why it’s not done already is that we were procrastinating on it. In fact, any single reason my husband and I could find not to do it was good and perfectly justify, in our mind.

Procaratination is over, it has to be. Our repairs are not necessarely the same that you will have in your house but our to do list could be a good example of what to look for.

• Walls: Repair any holes in the walls left by frames that was hanging or normal wear and tear. If you have wallpaper, unless it’s at today’s taste and is actually a plus in the house look, definitely take it down and paint the walls in a neutral color. Tone of gray, cream, white are always good choices.
• Paint: I don’t have young children at home anymore but maybe you do. As much as your young girl love her bright pink room, IT HAS TO GO. Bright colors could turn some buyers off. You don’t know what they want to do in this room. Although it seems like nothing for us sellers, they just have to paint when moving in, right? Wrong! For them it’s not just a coat of paint, its more work. Also, if they don’t like the color it will stick in their mind and lower the total experience. If you ever looked at any tv show on HGTV you can visualize the “Whoa” people are doing everytime they enter a room with bright colored walls. That’s exactely what you don’t want.
• Baseboards and Doors: Baseboards and doors are often overlooked features, but they are more important than we think for the whole look of the house. I was not thinking about it at all until I did my walk through and saw some scratches, stains and marks on it. We will have to fix any damages, clean any marks, and in some places, put a fresh coat of paint.
• Caulking: Check the caulking around bathtubs, sinks, windows, etc.. They are cracking and getting damage overtime and it’s an easy fix. You can purchase caulk from your local hardware store. Remove the old one and replace it.
  • A good tip that I use for caulking is putting painter’s tape on each side of the crack to fill (approx. 1/2 inch away). you can easily apply your caulk in between, remove the excess by passing on with you finger and then remove the tape when still fresh. If you wait until it’s dry you have a chance to break the caulk or lifting it.

• Ceiling: If there are any stains left behind by old leaks, be sure to put a fresh coat of paint over them. Popcorn ceilings is not a favorite for buyers but if you don’t have the budget or time to have it scraped and painted, like me, it must at least be clean and without stains.
• Flooring: We have carpet, tiles and hardwood in our house and each of them will need different care.
• Carpet: We’ll give it a deep cleaning. We decided, to save money, that we will rent a professional carpet cleaner and do it ourselves. It will hopefully do a great job and will be less expensive than having a carpet cleaning company over. The later is also an excellent option. If your carpet is old and showing a lot of stains that will not come off with cleaning, consider replacing it altogether.
• Tiles: The first thing that shows on tiles are cracks and dirty grout. Luckily, in our case, we don’t have any cracked tile to replace, because they should be if you have some. So, I will go directly to the grout. Light colored grout get dirty pretty fast if it’s not seal and even with a sealer if it’s not done regularly it will have stains overtime. There’s many option of grout cleaners in any hardware store. I’m planning to use one of those, maybe 2 for testing purposes and then update this post with some before and after pictures. Stay tuned!
• Hardwood floors: That’s a hard one, what I want is to get away with it without having them refinished entirely. My problem is that I have a beautiful Chocolate Lab that I adore but he really messed up our floors. What I will try is to steam clean and polish them. Also, I bought a bottle of “Rejuvenate”, this product is supposed to work wonders. I’ll try it and let you know the results.

6. Clean, Clean again and Keep It Clean

Spotless! nothing less. A deep cleaning is necessary everywhere. If you’re like me and hate cleaning more than anything else, call professionals it will worth it at the end. When it’s done, maintain it and keep it super clean AT ALL TIME. You never know when someone will want to visit and you need to be ready to show on short notice. Your buyer can be from out of town and on a short schedule. It was our case when we went to HHI to buy our first condo. All the visits needed to happen in 1 1/2 day. So, always be ready for a last minute showing.

7. Curb appeal

After the inside, Denis (my husband) and I will attack the outside. It’s winter right now but our ward is not covered with snow. As a result, it needs to be cleaned and looks well maintained. So, put on some gardening gloves, take the clippers and get to work!

All the small bushes, trees and conifers have to be trimmed. Our dead annual flowers and spices plan that don’t pass winter – Garbage.
Clean the garage doors, the vinyl and the stones. Also important, the windows and the entryway.

One thing that I always looked at when visiting a house is the front door. It’s like the focal point of the outside, the one we see the most, and it can give us a good or bad feeling on the whole image. As a result, a new coat of paint on the front door will be mandatory. I’ll maybe make a change and choose a nice new color. I’m not decided yet but if I do it I’ll take pictures to share with you all.

8. Staging!

The final touch, Staging! 2 options: Do it yourself or Hire a professional. In my case, I’ll do it myself, unless I don’t like what it looks like when I’m done decluttering the place. I know that I can’t keep everything I have since we want to downsize and it will not fit. So, I will soon start selling and donating until I only have the essential, necessary and loved left. As a result, we should face a little emptiness in our home.

Consequently, a professional stager may get a call to fill the empty with pretty things that our buyers will dream to get if they buy.

Important point to remember when staging, DEPERSONALIZE! I will never say enough how essential it is. I know it’s hard to take down the wedding, baby and graduation pictures but it’s necessary. I don’t want to be rude, but the reality is that people don’t care about your memories. They want to see themselves in what could be their future home not you and your family. It’s a lot harder for buyers to visualize and feel they are living in the house if they see other people lives all around on the walls.

Remember, Buyers can’t Fall in Love with a House if they can’t Feel at Home!

Contact me for all your Real Estate needs
kattyjulien@kw. com | kattyjulien.kw.com

Katty-Eve Julien