Selling: Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, California Real Estate Guide

Sellers -- What's Your Home Worth? | Setting the List Price
Preparing Your Home to Sell | Showing Tips | Home Warranties

Preparing Your Home to Sell

First Impressions Are Lasting Impressions.

The exterior of your home often determines how buyers will view the interior, so:

Make sure your front entrance is clean and inviting.
Paint or replace your front door if it's faded or worn.
Add some paint to shutters, trim, and any other outside features showing signs of wear.

Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep.

Buyers often view the surface condition of your home as a sign of what's underneath, so:

Keep windows and floors clean.
Replace faded wallpaper and re-glue any areas that have peeled away from the wall.
Repair or paint worn woodwork.
Repaint scarred or dirty walls in a neutral color.
Have carpets cleaned--or replace them if necessary.
Repair loose knobs, sticking doors and windows, warped cabinet drawers, broken light switches and other minor flaws.
Check and repair caulking in bathtubs and showers.

Accentuate the Positive.

Try to see your home with a fresh perspective and arrange each room to bring out its best attributes, including:

Open draperies and curtains to let the light in during the showing. Turn on all the lights.
Arrange all your rooms neatly and remove excess furniture and clutter. Ask your agent 's opinion about what constitutes clutter.
Keep fresh, clean towels in the bathroom, and put used towels out of sight elsewhere.
Remove all unnecessary clutter from your attic, basement, and closets to better display spacious rooms (consider renting a storage unit or having a garage sale to dispose of extraneous items).
Remember: "How we live in a home and how we sell a home are often two different things."

Put Your Home in the Best Possible Light.

Strategically lighting your home, even during daytime showings, can create a cozy mood and highlight positive attributes of each room, so:

Be creative and arrange lamps to help smaller rooms seem larger, and large rooms seem more intimate.
Use lighting to highlight the "living areas" of your home, such as a pair of chairs near a fireplace, or a table in a breakfast area.

Inside:

Clear all unnecessary objects from furniture throughout the house.
Clear all unnecessary objects from the kitchen countertops.
Clear refrigerator doors of messages, pictures, etc. (A sparse kitchen helps the Buyer mentally move their own things into your kitchen.)
In the bathroom, remove any unnecessary items from countertops, tubs, shower stalls and commode tops. Keep only your most needed cosmetics, brushes, perfumes, etc., in one small group on the counter. Coordinate towels to one or two colors only.
Rearrange or remove some of the furniture if necessary. As owners, many times we have too much furniture in a room. This is wonderful for our personal enjoyment, but when it comes to selling, we need to thin out as much as possible to make rooms appear larger.
Take down, or rearrange, pictures or objects on walls, especially collections of family pictures, which make it hard for Buyers to imagine themselves in your home. Patch and paint if necessary.
Review the house room by room. Paint any room needing paint, clean carpets or drapes that need it, clean windows.
Leave on certain lights during the day. (I'll show you which ones.) During "showings" turn on all lights and lamps.
Have quiet stereo or FM music on during the day for showings, and be sure the TV is off when Buyers see the house.
If you have pets, be sure the cat box is clean and completely odor-free, and keep the dog in a place where he will not jump on or distract the prospective Buyers. If you are home, and know the house will be shown, put the dog in the car and take him for a ride.

Outside:

Trim landscaping to reveal architectural detail (bottom of windows, etc.).
Go around the house and move all garbage cans, discarded wood scraps, extra building materials, etc., into the garage.
Check gutters and roof for moss, leaves, and litter. Make sure they are swept and cleaned.
Look at all plants. Remove any dead plants or shrubs. Prune overgrown bushes and trees. Keep plants from blocking windows.
Weed and then mulch all planting areas. Keep lawn freshly cut, watered, and fertilized.
Clear patios, decks, and yard of all small items, such as small planters, flower pots, charcoal, barbecues, toys, etc. (Put them in the garage.)
Check paint condition of the house-especially the front door and trim. "Curb appeal really works!"

In General:

Try to look at your house "through the buyer's eyes" as though you've never seen it or been there before.

Any time or money spent on these items will bring you back more money in return, and will result in a faster sale.