You want to sell your home, but you keep hearing about how hard it is to sell a house in today’s market.  How do you ensure that your house stands out in the crowd?

There are several things you can do to make sure potential buyers see the great things about your home.  It’s not necessary to spend lots of time or money on prepping your home.  Instead, try these easy, cost-effective tips for prepping your house for sale:

• Depersonalize.   Pack away personal pictures, items on the fridge, and anything that’s personal to you but may not matter to someone else.  Potential buyers want to visualize themselves living in this space.  That’s difficult to do with pictures of another family dominating the walls.
• Declutter.  Clutter can make our spaces look messy, disorganized, and smaller than they are. Pack away all unnecessary items, including knick-knacks, unused appliances, extra books and magazines, and anything else that might be just sitting around taking up space.  It might be a good idea to declutter the space, then have someone else – a friend or relative who doesn’t live in the house – come in and give you ideas on how you can do even more decluttering.  We sometimes become immune to our own messes and don’t see all the things that could be put away.
• Take out extra furniture.  Too much furniture can create the illusion that a space is smaller than it actually is.  If necessary, rent a storage unit to store your furniture until you move.
• Paint.  A fresh coat of paint is an inexpensive and easy way to freshen up the look of your home. Use neutral, light colors to create the illusion of bigger spaces, especially in small rooms.
• Clean the carpets.  Your carpet may not be in the best condition, but deep cleaning it will make it look better.  If you can’t hire it done, rent a steam cleaner from your local retailer and shampoo them yourself.
• Don’t ignore those hidden-away places.  How many times have you shoved clutter into a closet or cabinet when company comes over, just to quickly clean up the mess?  Potential buyers will be looking in all corners of the house.  Be sure to clean those easily forgotten areas, including the garage, the basement, and all closets and cabinets.
• Clean, clean, clean.  As difficult as it is to keep a house “show-ready,” it’s even more difficult to sell a house that is dirty or dingy.  Make sure all floors are swept, counters are wiped out, and bathrooms are sparkling.

Let’s face it – selling a house is hard work.  However, you can create better odds that your house will sell if you follow these easy, inexpensive methods for creating an enticing environment for potential buyers.

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Tags: Appliances, carpet, Clean Carpet, Clean Carpets, Clutter, Coat Of Paint, Crowd, Deep Cleaning, Fresh Coat Of Paint, Fridge, furniture, house for sale, Illusion, Knick Knacks, Light Colors, Messes, S Market, Shampoo, Steam Cleaner, Storage Unit, Taking Up Space

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 8:35 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.