PROPER PACKAGING FOR YOUR HOME SALE
December 17th, 2008 categories: Selling
Don’t we all love getting presents? A beautifully wrapped package that contains who knows what delight is one of the great pleasures of life! Have you ever thought about packaging your home for sale? Perhaps you should think of your Realtor as your packaging consultant. Ask your Realtor to come and do a walk through to give you suggestions. If your Realtor suggests hiring a “stager,” DO IT. The Realtor may be willing to share the cost with you. Here are a few other suggestions for beginning that packaging.
- If you have a patio, front yard, or balcony–be sure that all the plantings are neat and cared for, that any furniture is well-maintained and tastefully placed–no tatty chairs with plastic webbing broken or loose. Better no furniture than trashy looking furniture.
- Be sure the front door is clean–repaint if necessary–remember this is the potential buyer’s first impression of your home–it should make them anxious to see what wonders are inside.
- Once inside everything should sparkle–clean, clean, clean everything. The windows should be squeaky clean, the stove should be squeaky clean, the refrigerator should be squeaky clean–everything your mama ever taught you about cleaning should be done and even more if you can think of anything.
- Either rent a steam cleaner and clean the carpet or hire someone to do it. Replace badly worn carpet with a cheap grade of carpet and an expensive grade of padding–feels great and costs less.
- If you can get away without painting–so much the better. Be sure to check for chipped paint and smudges on the walls. If you have unusual paint colors, chartreuse, black, emerald green–might be a good idea to re-paint to a neutral color that doesn’t detract from the size of your rooms or the available light.
- And do be aware of any odors in the home–pet odors are particularly offensive, smoking odors are also on the prohibited list. Exercise great care to be sure your home smells good.
- Organize all the closets and if you have one, your garage. Empty your closets to the point that they actually have spare room–the prospective buyers will feel that there is so much room you couldn’t use it all. Clean all cupboards, closets and storage spaces–throw out everything you can. Think carefully because moving charges can add up quickly, especially on never or little-used items that you will probably wonder why you ever bothered moving in a year or so.
- Small improvements can add pizazz to your home–perhaps a new faucet and cabinet knobs in the kitchen, a new front door knocker–that sort of thing. New tile in the bathroom if it is chipped or cracked is a good idea. Look at your home critically–most of us just take our home for granted–think “Would I want to buy this home–what would it take to make it more attractive?”
- To sum it all up CLEAN, DECLUTTER, DEPERSONALIZE! Unfortunately that depersonalize means cutting down the three hundred precious pictures of relatives to three. I once had a wonderful listing, it had huge rooms, great lake view, super building AND a whole wall of family pictures dating from the late 1800s–well, it eventually sold even though I kept losing potential buyers to the family picture gallery.
If you would like a professional opinion about what needs to be done to YOUR home to make it more saleable–312-981-2360 or e-mail.
Related Articles: To Remodel Or Not To Remodel And When, 12-08, How Much Will My Home Sell For, 11-08, Agents May Say “NO” To A Listing, 11-08.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Selling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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