Preparing your home to sell can be stressful.
The Lawhead Team would like to share these projects from Coldwell Banker to do before you list your home.
Use this checklist to get your home ready:
Project 1: Front Door and Entryway
The first project on your homeowner’s checklist is to address your front door and entryway. Beyond your front yard, your door and entry will be the very first impression on a potential buyer. Literally look at everything from the ceiling right down to the floor and draw up your list of to-do’s. Here are some common areas you can spruce up to make this area truly shine:
- Door finish or paint: Is your door dull or drab? Consider repainting, restaining, or adding another level of varnish to erase aging.
- Door hardware: How do your hinges and handles look? If they are a bit dull, try to shine them up using the right type of chemical for the metal type. If they’re banged up or in truly bad shape, now is the time to spend a few dollars to replace.
- Entry flooring: What type of flooring does your entry have: rug, wood, tile? No matter the type, clean it vigorously, fix any issues, or consider replacing it entirely if it’s in dire condition.
- Floorboards: Floorboards show aging in your home like no other accoutrement. They get banged up, accumulate dust and dirt, and just sometimes look awful. Clean these and possibly repaint.
- Lighting: Look at the lights both right outside your front door and in your entry. Replace light bulbs, clean out light surrounds, and add additional lighting if necessary.
- Furniture and belongings: While your entry might serve as the area in your home where things are dumped as you come in the door, your prospective buyers don’t want to see this. Clean up and clean out to provide a spacious and inviting area.
Project 2: Painting
Painting is one of the lowest cost ways to totally transform your home, and it’s also one of the easiest and fastest DIY projects you can undertake. Go through every room of your house with a brutal eye. Is the paint dingy or peeling? Are the colors of some spaces more likely to scare off sellers than reel them in? Consider using very neutral colors that will allow buyers to picture their own furnishings in your space.
Project 3: Landscaping
Although this is listed last, it’s actually one of the best ways you can entice buyers into loving your property. Cut back overgrowth, prune trees judiciously, plant attractive annuals, put down seeding or sod for missing patches of grass, and basically just spend the day — or five — working up a sweat around your yard, turning it into a masterpiece. This is the largest sweat equity project, so you’ll likely not need to spend much, but your own hard work can bring buyers inside.