Important things to do when planning to sell your home

Prepare your house and your family by knowing the things to do when selling a house. It’ll help sell your house quicker and improve with resale value.

Now is the time to fix all of those nagging things that you just lived with. Inside the house, look for things like stained ceilings, missing tile, broken windows and doors, heavily scratched floors and other signs of neglect. Outside, look for broken or missing shingles, patio pavers and tuckpointing. If you have a deck, check for cracks in floor boards and loose railings. Make a list of everything you see and then decide which things you’re going to tackle. A real estate agent can be very helpful in determining what needs to be done and what doesn’t.

Learn 13 things you’re doing to your home that real estate agents wouldn’t.

Every homeowner has at least a couple ongoing projects that never seem to get finished. Now is the time to finish painting the guest room, install the ceiling fan you bought last summer and stain that beadboard you put up in the pantry.

If painting is on your list, this collection of tips will help you finish the task with a lot less mess.

It’s important that your home makes a good first impression. When potential buyers drive up to your home, you want them to think, “Wow! I could live here!” To make sure buyers want to see the inside of your home, make sure the outside is well-kept, tidy and inviting. It’s important to touch-up or completely repaint trim, keep the grass cut, edge along footpaths and paths, maintain flowers and shrubs and keep the yard tidy. You never know when curious buyers will drive by.

Here are some budget-friendly ways to add instant kerb appeal

Resist the urge to roll your eyes at this one. It is imperative that your home looks liveable. Potential buyers may not be able to see past your clutter. Think of it this way – don’t move things you no longer want or need. Make decisions now and your house will sell faster and your move will be easier. It’s no secret that getting started is the hardest part of decluttering. Take one room, or even part of one room, at a time and dive in. Recycle or shred paper. Donate books, toys, clothing and duplicate household items. If you’re getting frustrated and you can’t deal with one more stack of papers or shoebox of old photos, put them in a plastic tub, label the tub and stack it somewhere out of the way. A stack of tubs doesn’t look like clutter.

Here are 26 secrets personal organisers would never tell you for free.

Don’t overlook items on display on your shelves, tables and benchtops and inside buffets and other glass-door or open-shelf cabinets. You probably don’t even notice what’s there, but too much clutter on and in everything can distract a buyer. A good rule of thumb is ‘Reduce by 50 percent.’ In other words, if you have 10 things on a shelf, put away (or get rid of) five. If there are a dozen mugs on display in the kitchen, lose six. One more thing: If you have a lot of personal items on display, it can make it harder for potential buyers to imagine themselves living there. If you display items of a political or religious nature that could be off-putting to others, consider putting them in storage until you can proudly display them again in your new home.

If you decide to do some interior painting, stick to neutral colours. You’ve heard it before, but it’s the truth. Neutrals don’t distract and they allow potential buyers to imagine their things in your home.

For help on painting, check these ideas that professional painters don’t want you to know.

This may be the most important step you take toward getting your home ready to sell. For a home to live up to the “move-in condition” description, it has to be clean. If you already keep a clean house, simply keep up the good work, checking to make sure you don’t overlook little-used wardrobes and other nooks and crannies that aren’t part of your weekly routine. This needs to be a deep cleaning. For the rest of us, it’s time to get serious. Start at the top (the attic or second-story rooms) and work your way down. Clean ceiling light fixtures first, scrub walls and woodwork and finish with floors. As you work your way from top to bottom, don’t leave one area until it is completely clean and then move on. Don’t drag dirt from one area back into the place you just cleaned. Finally, don’t underestimate the power of clean windows. Buyers won’t walk in and think, “Wow, clean windows!” But, freshly cleaned windows look great from the outside and with the lights on, they sparkle on the inside.

Here’s a simple guide to window cleaning.

Your furniture is arranged the way it best suits you and your family. When you’re staging your home to sell, you’ll need to use your furniture as marketing tools to help create inviting vignettes. Avoid having furniture lined up along the walls. Pull the sofa away from the wall and pull chairs close to create a conversation area. Also, you may need to remove some furniture so it’s easy for people to walk around in the rooms. If you’ve toured display homes and had the feeling you could move right in and live there, that’s what you’re going for.

Learn 10 ways you’re arranging your furniture all wrong.

If the weather allows, plant flowers in pots, window boxes or right in the ground to add colour and pump up the kerb appeal. Pay close attention to the plants, keeping them watered and trimmed. Inside the house, fresh flowers in vases add colour, life and the feeling that you, as the home seller, are putting your best foot forward. It may not matter to some buyers but others will appreciate this detail and take it as a sign that your home has been well cared for.