Preparing your home for an open house.
An open house is a chance to showcase your home to potential home buyers who may have seen your home online and want to take the next step. An open house could potentially seal the deal.
The Lawhead Team would like to share some helpful tips to making sure your home is ready for its Open House.
Check out these tips for hosing an open house:
- Clear clutter. When you have too many appliances on the counters in your kitchen or piles of magazines on every flat surface of your living room or too much furniture in your rooms, it turns buyers off because they’re not able to visualize how they will use the space.
- Hire a cleaning service. Buyers won’t notice if your home is spotlessly clean, but they will notice if it isn’t. A cleaning service tackles all those dusty places you might forget: baseboards, tops of picture frames, ceiling fans. A neat and clean home is more attractive to potential homeowners especially during an open house.
- Remove family photos. Buyers need to see a neutral canvas where they can put down their roots instead of viewing your family tree.
- Neutralize odors. Often, you get used to the smells of your home. Ask your real estate professional or a friend for a nose check. Shampoo your carpets before the open house, and if you have pets, give them baths and make sure litter boxes are clean.
- Make repairs. Buyers are looking for the imperfections in your home, so now’s the time to fix that leaky faucet or slow-running drain, replace broken window panes and replace burned out light bulbs. These are noticeable maintenance projects that must be tackled before the open house.
- Buy new towels. Spruce up your kitchen and bathroom for your guests with fresh and decorative linens for the open house.
- Set the table. Stage your dining room table for a nice meal to encourage buyers to imagine what it would be like to entertain in the house. Your best china and a new neutral tablecloth with matching napkins will help with the visualization.
Enhance curb appeal. Trim your lawn, weed your beds and prune your shrubs for your open house. These small landscaping tasks make a world of difference when trying to make your home sell.- Organize cabinets and drawers. Storage space is a vital selling point of any property. More is more when it comes to the nooks and crannies of where to put belongings. Cluttered linen closets, kitchen cabinets and bedroom closets make it appear that your home doesn’t have enough storage. Solve this issue by streamlining and organizing all these spaces for your open house.
- Leave. Buyers will feel more comfortable asking questions of your agent at your open house if you’re not hovering in the background. Your Realtor can highlight the positive features of your home without bias. Occupy yourself away from home for a few hours. And if you have pets, take them with you. Some buyers might not feel comfortable around your four-legged friends or might have allergies.
