Improve your home’s curb appeal before you list
Want to sell your home quickly and at top dollar? You need to ensure that it’s looking its best ahead of listing. After all, your home isn’t the only one on the market: there are dozens, if not hundreds, of similar homes at your price and square footage, competing with yours for the attention of local buyers.
If your home doesn’t look the part, you’re going to drive away any prospective buyers and turn what should have been a quick sale into a slow-moving, frustrating slog. In this article, we’ll provide you with some tips on giving your home’s curb appeal a much-needed boost ahead of listing.
New paint looks great
When it comes to getting bang-for-your-buck, it’s hard to beat painting. Repainting the inside and outside of your home is one of the least-expensive—yet most impactful—projects you can complete ahead of selling your home.
How you go about doing this comes down to where you live and how much time you have. For example, a stucco exterior requires a fair amount of prep work and repair ahead of painting. If you live in Arizona, for instance, you may need to enlist the help of professional house painters in Phoenix to help you complete the project.
Provided you have enough time before you need to list, you can knock out painting the inside of your home over the course of a few weekends. If you’re feeling pressed, you might want to hire a contractor to help you here, too. Many hands make light work, and working with a professional ensures that your new wall paint will look stunning.
Deep clean your home
It’s time to take your annual spring cleaning to the next level. A pre-listing clean needs to be thorough, and you’re going to need to invest time and money into forms of cleaning you probably have never done before. This includes renting a carpet cleaner to deep-clean carpets and upholstery. It also includes carefully washing all your windows, pulling out appliances to clean behind them, and removing cobwebs from hard-to-reach eaves and other places.
Keeping a home clean for an extended period of time is hard—especially if you have children or pets. Try to get your home to its cleanest state ahead of your realtor coming by to take photos. You really want the care you’ve put into your home to show through in your online listing.
Rethink your yard
Traditionally, the term “curb appeal” refers to the view of your home from the street. This still matters. If your front yard is a mess—overgrown grass, dying trees, a stuck fence gate—you need to put the time and effort into fixing things up and making the front of your home not only presentable, but appealing to prospective buyers who decide to drive out for a tour or open house.
