Many people stage their homes ahead of listing so that their home looks amazing in photos and in-person when prospective buyers stop by. Even if you don’t end up enlisting the services of a professional home staging company, there’s still a lot you can learn from them. Here’s how you should go about preparing your home for sale.
Make your home’s exterior look amazing
A first impression matters. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. If your home looks old, faded, and messy from the outside, prospective buyers are going to—rightly or wrongly—jump to some conclusions before they even step foot inside. Take the time to prep your home for sale by completing these projects:
- Painting: Repaint the exterior of your home, or at least touch up its existing paint. If you want one less thing to worry about, or have a stucco exterior, you should hire a professional. For instance, if you need exterior house painting services in Phoenix, you’ll want to find a pro painter that knows how to work with stucco and match the natural desert aesthetic of the neighborhoods there.
- Landscaping: Yes, you should trim up bushes, mow the lawn, and cut off overgrown branches from trees. However, if your yard is a busy mess even with this upkeep, you might want to consider working with a landscaper to remove some of it and simplify both your front and back yards. Some buyers will see too many plants as a burden.
Turn to your home’s interior
Now, it’s time to prepare the inside of your home for your impending listing. Here’s what you need to consider:
- Renovations: This ultimately comes down to how much money you’re willing to invest and how much time you have. Yes, a remodeled kitchen will do more than anything else to raise the value of your home and its curb appeal. But, if you only have two weeks until listing, you have to skip it and move on. Talk to your realtor to plan out any big projects.
- Paint: Again, paint is key to getting your home ready for listing. Repaint the inside of your home from baseboards to ceiling. It’s tedious, but it’s one of the least-expensive and most impactful improvements you can make to your home.
- Furniture: Even if you don’t end up renting furniture to stage your home with, you should learn from the success of that process. If you have large, heavy furniture, move it out now and put it in a storage unit. Focus on adding clear, open, and well-lit spaces to your home.
Talk with your realtor
Every home is different. To get yours ready for the market in your area, talk to your realtor and see if there’s anything else you need to do. Ask them about staging: it might be the right call for your property.
To learn more about preparing a home for sale and what successful home staging consists of, be sure to check out this infographic.
