Questions to Ask Yourself Before Selling Your Home
Selling your home can be an exciting yet stressful event. You’re probably asking yourself “How do I even start to sell my home?”. What is my home’s worth? What price should I sell my home for? All of these are very important questions. There are also some questions that you SHOULD ask yourself but many home sellers miss. Take note of these additional tips so that you can get the most out of your home sale.
Is It Dark In Here?
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If there is one thing that you really should not overlook with the sale of your home, it’s going to be appearances. Cleaning and tidying are obvious, but there are some details you may overlook. In every room, take a look at the lighting. Whether it is natural or by fixture, you’ll want to make sure that every room is brightly lit.
This is overlooked at times because we are so used to our house as it is and we sometimes don’t realize that certain areas need to be more illuminated. Not only is this important for ease of use of the area, but it is also a safety hazard as well.
Check out closets and stairways first. These tend to be the most overlooked areas. Speak with your realtor to brainstorm the best ways of lighting said area. This is going to be most important for potential buyers who have children or are elderly. However, regardless of age, no one wants to travel down dark basement steps.
Is There Too Much?
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If you haven’t found your new home yet, or you’re not ready to buy until you sell, you should purchase a storage unit. This will help you to move items when you need to downsize your home. Getting started on removing your personal belongings is only going to benefit you down the line.
What you want to do is make sure that your home has fewer signs of you living there, and more of an open plan. This helps buyers visualize their items and their family living in this space. Some good tricks are to remove half of your things.
This shows the open availability of storage and space for the potential home buyer while still showing HOW something fits into that area. For example, in your closets, remove about half of your items and arrange the closet in a way that highlights the storage availability. If you have shelves in there, use them! Show how you can store items above and below.
The same should apply to kitchen cabinets and all open counter space. Living in a home for years, you gather more and more along the way. You don’t want all of your items shoved in the corner for everyone to see. This will make your home look cluttered and would be difficult for your guests to visualize the home without these things.
Do I Have Pets?
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This may seem like a silly question to ask yourself because you should know if you do or do not. Homeowners may think that showing the signs of their pets would bring them some bonus points. Who doesn’t love an adorable critter running around?
The answer to that is simply that a lot of people are not fond of animals. Some may love animals from afar and have no desire to own and some may be allergic to animal dander. Whatever it may be, clean up after your pets.
Do not leave the pets at home when you are doing a show and clean up the fur, feeding, and litter box if you have a cat. You most certainly do not want to be the seller in the community who’s house smells of animals. We live with our animals so we get used to their smells. But strangers can always tell if you have pets.
Play it safe, keep the animals away. Feel free to highlight the benefits of the home that would help with owning pets. For example, a large backyard for dogs or children or both to run. But make sure to keep your kids and dogs away from the home during a showing.
These are just some best practices that sellers tend to overlook or not think about. Take these things into consideration before showing your home. First impressions are the only kind of impressions when it comes to selling your home.
