If you’re considering selling your home on this hot market, there are some things you need to consider, first. It can be easy to forget all the maintenance during the pandemic, and if you’ve lived in your home a while, it can also be easy for things to begin to pile up. This is only natural, but it can affect your sales price! Let’s look at the biggest reasons for cleaning up your house before you try to sell.
Make Your Home More Attractive
The value of a house can be cut in half if left in a messy state by the previous owner. If the difference in price is that dramatic, it is in your best interest to invest a little into cleaning up and getting some cosmetic work done. New paint, clear floors and sealed cracks goes a long way to making a house feel like a premium home. The price of cleaning a hoarder’s house is not cheap – clearing a hoard can cost $.75 to $2.00 a sq. ft., depending upon the severity involved – but the value it adds to the house makes it worth your consideration.
Make it Easier to Sell
Even when not dealing with a severely cluttered or hoarded situation, making sure a home is clean is critical to sales. Cleaning up is key to selling real estate faster. A potential buyer wants to be able to look at the home and see the potential of their own family living there, and that it’s ready for them to move in. Being clean and well cared for, with “stray” projects taken care of, walls washed and/or repainted, and floors polished nicely makes it possible to see that potential.
Remove Personality
Everybody has personal items, clutter, and personal preferences for storing and displaying things in their home. If, however, a seller’s version is different from a potential buyer’s, you have a conflict. Personal items like pictures, displays of baby things, and specifically clutter items need to be stored to make the property look more “generic” and ready for buyers.
Making a home “sales clean” before attempting to list is crucial to the market, especially for the pictures taken for online listings. Those homes which are ready to move into, especially for those moving across the country, are critical during the pandemic. The extra time and effort it takes to be ready, both for inspections and buyer’s eyes, is worth it every time.
Check out this article on tips for real estate investing beginners!