The process of selling and buying a house involves a lot of moving parts. Not only do you need to find a new home that will suit your needs and make a good fit for your family, but you also need to find the right buyers for your current property.
Unfortunately, it can be a tricky thing to know what buyers are looking for in a home since real estate trends fluctuate all the time. It can be all too easy to miss the mark and make some key errors when you are preparing to list your house. Before you put your property on the market, make sure that you aren’t making one of these three common mistakes.
1) Keeping Things Cluttered
When you walk through your house, you most likely don’t notice the clutter and personal items that have accumulated over time. The longer you live in a home, the better you get at finding or creating additional storage options to accommodate all your things. Potential buyers, though, will likely be unimpressed by any home that doesn’t appear to be perfectly tidy and clutter-free.
Take the time before you list to go through your house and clear out all personal items, like family photos and the like, and pack them away. You might also want to remove a few pieces of furniture to make the rooms in your home appear bigger and more open.
Since you likely won’t be able to find space for such things in the existing storage in your house, you should consider renting a storage unit off-site. StorageArea.com has some great and affordable option that are definitely worth a look.
2) Ignoring the Exterior
The curb appeal that your home has can make a major impression on potential buyers. That impression can either be positive or negative depending on how much attention you pay to the exterior of your property. Prior to listing, take a good look at your house from the outside. Small alterations to landscaping or a fresh coat of paint on the trim can go a long way.
Try to keep the same mentality that you had when you decluttered the inside of your house. Will trimming the trees and bushes add a cleaner, less-cluttered look to the outside? Get used to regularly cutting the grass and keeping weeds at bay while your house is on the market so that it is ready for a showing at a moment’s notice.
3) Making Expensive Renovations
It can be tempting to want to make major renovations when you are preparing to list your home. Such things can actually end up costing your more in the long run, though, as not all renovations translate into value for your home. Moreover, you would likely renovate things to suit your personal taste as opposed to that of a potential buyer. Save yourself the money up front by only doing small repairs and let the next owner make any expensive changes that they see fit later on.
