5 Low-Cost Tips To Prepare Your Home For Sale

Real estate is sold throughout the year but when spring and summer

roll around, one begins to see yard sales going up as homeowners

prepare their homes for sale. The following is a list of tips that are

low in cost and usually require nothing more than a few weekends and

some elbow grease to get the job done.



As a general rule the best time to prepare your home for sale is at

the very earliest point in "spring" (actually early March or even late

February), the time when seasonal buying interest is just starting to

build. However, this rule is not written in stone and these tips

apply throughout the year.



Here are the "Top 5" things a seller can do to increase the final

selling price without spending too much money out-of-pocket.



1) Clean it. Home buyers, it turns out, hate dirty homes more than

just about anything else. So, give the home a thorough cleaning from

top to bottom, inside and outside.



2) Organize it and Declutter It. If the home is too cluttered for the

seller, it probably will look too small for the buyer. Store away all

belongings that aren't regularly used. Store furniture that isn't

necessary for comfortable living. A sparser, less cluttered room

always makes an area look more spacious. This whole process of

cleaning, decluttering, sprucing up homes, and even bringing in

designer furniture to prepare homes for sale has begun a new real

estate industry called "home staging". But a homeowner can duplicate

some of these things by paying close attention to these low-cost items

he or she can do as a seller.



3) Repaint it. Real estate surveys find that a homeowner gets their

biggest bang for their buck by repainting the interior of the home in

bright white or off-white paint. Painting the house in neutral colors

is always a good idea.



4) Landscape it. Mow it and plant it. The exterior of the home is the

first impression that a buyer will get, and it will be a long lasting

one. Now with so many listings being made available on the internet,

pictures of homes on the internet are what many buyers will see first

of a prospective home and the exterior's condition will determine if

they want to take a look inside!



5) Fix it. If it isn't working properly, it usually ends up costing

more at the negotiating table than at the hardware store. Make sure to

pay close attention to any plumbing problems (i.e. a broken garbage

disposal) that may exude musty or foul smells. Today's buyer, with

their busy lifestyles, just wants to move in and get on with their

day-to-day business. If they have to spend time in repairing, they

will subconsciously factor in more than the actual cost at the

negotiating table. Statistics usually show that these costs amount to

about two to three times more.



As the homeowner busies himself with his to-do list of household

chores, keep in mind that the better shape the home is in, the more a

prospective home buyer will be likely to pay for it.