If you need to sell your house in your San Diego neighborhood, depending on where you are located, you might have some tough competition. Standing out from the competition and giving yourself an edge when it comes to placing your home on the market is a key component of making sure your home is the chosen one. In the lead-up to your listing and in the months before your sale, work to keep your home in top-selling condition.
Complete Outdoor Maintenance
Take some time to clean out your gutters, wash the outside of your home, and have a professional window cleaning done. If you have gardens, have a landscape company come in to clean them up, get rid of debris and dead plants, trim your hedges, and make the landscaping more professional and appealing. Likewise, any unfinished outdoor projects like a shed or tool bench should be completed or moved off the property to prevent unsightly additions that might be a turn-off for potential buyers.
Depersonalize the Interior
If you have lived in your home for some time, chances are it looks quite a bit like your home – you painted some of the walls a bright accent color, and let your daughter paint her room green. You have pictures of the kids around the home and much of the artwork from your favorite painter on the wall. While all of these things are nice, they make the home feel like yours, and when someone new is looking to buy it, that is not what they want. In the months before you list, start to repaint the walls back to more neutral colors. Remove bold wallpaper and take down the solar system set that covers your child’s ceiling. Doing these things over a period of a few months will make depersonalizing far less overwhelming when you are getting ready for an open house.
Finish Renovation Projects
Whether you tackled redoing the laundry room, started putting in new kitchen cabinets, or remodeled the bathroom, all of these projects should be completed before you list your home. If you are not very deep into the renovation, you may be able to call it off, but done right, and especially in a room such as a bathroom or kitchen, completing a pre-sale renovation could add value to your home. If you are not sure what the best move is, or how much renovating and fixing up you should do before listing, speak to a real estate agent and get them to help you prepare your home ahead of advertising so that you can maximize your chances of sale.
Selling your home is a large undertaking, filled with lots of necessary steps and requiring a lot of time on your part. Making that period easier by doing some tasks ahead of time and keeping up with home maintenance tasks in the lead-up to the listing are both great ways to ensure your sale goes off without a hitch.
