5 steps to prepare your home for sale

5 Steps to prepare your home for sale

When it comes to selling your home, it’s important that your property looks its best. You want your listing to stand out online and for potential buyers to fall in love as soon as they arrive. You want them to feel Right at Home!

Here are our 5 steps to getting your property ready for sale:

Step 1: Declutter!

You've undoubtedly heard this word many times, however don’t underestimate the power of decluttering when it comes to selling your home. With just a small amount of effort, you can easily declutter your home and make it much more attractive to potential buyers in the process. Plus, when it comes time to move you’ll have made the job a little easier for yourself!

- Walk through your home room by room. Use a critical eye. A good rule of thumb is to single out anything that you haven’t used in over 6 months.

- Consider donating items that you haven’t used in over 12 months, otherwise pack away items you don’t want to part with.

- For larger items like furniture, remove pieces that don’t have an everyday purpose or items that block the flow of your home. You want each space to feel large and bright.

- Remove personal items like photographs - you want buyers to imagine their lives in your home.

Step 2: Clean

Really clean. Give your home a deep clean from top to bottom, back to front.

- Vacuum and wipe down skirting boards and architraves

- Wash walls to remove marks or smoke stains

- Wash windows, inside and out

- Wipe down all surfaces, including light switches, door handles, etc.

- Consider getting your carpets professionally cleaned

Step 3: Repairs

Buyers want to see that your home has been well cared for, so make sure that all DIY jobs have been completed and call in tradesman for any major repairs..

Simple tasks like replacing missing fence posts, ripped fly screens, broken tiles, fixing lights which don’t work, finishing paint jobs and filling holes in walls can make all the difference when it comes to selling your home.

Step 4: Painting

When putting your home on the market, you want to appeal to the widest possible audience. This means setting aside your personal style and creating an inviting, neutral space where buyers can imagine their own lives. That vibrant red or aqua feature wall that you just love may turn buyers off or make spaces look smaller and closed in. Consider repainting your home in light, neutral colours like whites and creams to brighten and open up rooms and create a blank canvas for buyers to paint their own lives upon.

Step 5: Street appeal

First impressions are essential. You want to make sure that from first sight your property is inviting and enticing to buyers. This includes:

- Making sure your lawns are mowed

- Tidying garden edges

- Weeding garden beds

- Trimming trees or bushes that may be covering windows or hanging over driveways

- If your front door is looking worn, a fresh coat of paint and new hardware is a cost effective facelift

- If your house number is hidden or dated, invest in a new one

We hope this gives you a good starting point to preparing your property for sale. Good luck!