With the recent downturn in the economy as well as the collapse of the real-estate bubble every home seller is looking to get the most for his or her house. Selling a house in a buyer’s market is not an easy thing it takes a lot of patience, negotiation and effort on the part of the seller to spark interest in his or her property. One way of standing out, attracting buyers and increasing your property‘s value at the same time is by doing somewhat of a mini home make over. When people hear the word make over they think loads of money spent on renovations, that doesn’t have to be the case. You can easily and very affordably spruce up the look and feel of your house with a few simple steps:
De-personalize
If you have potential buyers coming in for an open house do your best to remove anything that reminds them that the house is yours. What you want to do is have the buyer walk around and imagine if it were his or her house; that’s a little hard to do with all your family photos hanging on the wall. Remove all your family pictures and hide them in the closet. Clean up your bedroom and bathroom to resemble those of a hotel. Hide your shampoos and half used soap bars/loofa.
De-clutter
No buyer wants to come look at your house if everything is a mess. This goes back to the first point of depersonalizing. Make sure everything in the house is neat, clean and stowed away in a closet or something. When your buyer comes through they don’t want to see half your dvd collection on the floor or your clothes all spread out on your bed. Keep it organized so that they can focus on the mental picture of them living in the house.
Re-paint
Nothing says that you took care of your property like a fresh coat of paint. Fresh paint brings vibrancy to your house. Painting is relatively cheap if you can do the job yourself, with the help of places like home depot and sears it is not that hard either. Although you should make sure to avoid colors such as red, lime, yellow, or purple. It is best to go with a subtle and clean looking white or egg shell. Referring to the first point you don’t want to impose your choice of color on the potential buyer, white paint for walls is universally accepted.
