From Listed to Loved: Make Your Home the Market's Favorite

As Realtors, we get the phone call often from sellers saying they are ready to sell their home.   Only to arrive at their home and the seller not being anywhere close to being ready to sell their home.  Since real estate is normalizing and getting back to being a price war and beauty contest, it is more important now than it has been at any point this decade for a seller to make sure their home is ready for the market.  Pricing is always paramount in getting a home sold and will always be the biggest deciding factor if a home does or does not sale.  However, the look of a property and home is a close second to determining how quickly a home may sale.  Therefore, I decided to share a few tips on things to consider when getting your house ready for the market.

First impressions matter.  Though a buyer has seen a house online, the first impression they get of a home is when they pull in the driveway.  I mention to sellers often the most bang for your buck of anything you can do outside of your home is pressure washing.  Pressure wash the driveway, walkways, porches, patios, and siding to clean them up. The freshly whitened concrete will make everything around it seem more vibrant and washing off the mildew that grows on exterior surfaces freshens up siding and brick.  Sellers should consider sprucing up their landscaping.  Pulling weeds and adding more pine straw or mulch in flower beds freshens up the look.  Trimming bushes and getting up limbs, leaves and pinecones allow for a look of less maintenance as a first impression.  Finally, do not forget to clean out gutters and clean off your roof.  If you have debris clogging up the gutters or roof valleys, home inspectors will call you the seller out and buyers will see the house as unkept.  My friend Sean from Ace Roofing told me “one of the easiest preventive measures people can take to keep their roof from deteriorating faster is to clean leaves and pine straw off a roof.”  So not only does cleaning off your roof help with first impression, but it will also help your roof last longer and avoid a ding on the buyer’s home inspection report that could hurt a deal.

The second first impression a buyer has of a home is when they walk through the front door.   Psychologists have said that within the first 15 seconds of a buyer walking through the front door of a home, they know if it is the one for them or not.  I have seen this fifteen second rule hold true many times since I started selling real estate in 2003.  Cleanliness is next to Godliness is an old saying that rings true for the initial first impression of the interior of a home.  If you have pets, smoke, cook heavy scented foods or have teenage boys, smells can be a detrimental first impression.  Consider deeply cleaning the house before placing it on the market.  Then invest in candles or scented plug ins, spray air fresheners or have bowls of potpourri around the house to help your home have a more delightful aroma.  Most people are unable to smell the scent of their own home as they are accustomed to it.  Clean bathrooms to ensure hair is not all over sinks and tubs, make sure the toothpaste is off mirrors and put the toilet seats down.  Shine the floors, polish your countertops, and clean fingerprints off the appliances too.  Of course, a fresh coat of paint always helps a home feel cleaner as it takes away years of fingerprints, dirt, and dings.  Paint is the ultimate lipstick on a pig, assuming the seller picks the right color to beautify a property.  Paint will add more value to a home than what you typically spend on painting.  Freshly painted trim and walls make everything inside the home seem neater and cleaner.

Finally, a seller can help control a buyer’s first impression by the décor and stuff in a home.  Too much clutter in a home can make rooms, closets and cabinets seem small.  Cleaning off countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms ensure they look more spacious.  If you are not planning to wear an article of clothing or need extra towels and blankets for the next few months, pack them away.  By doing so, you will make the closets seem roomier and neater.  If a buyer sees a closet busting at the seams, their thoughts are that if the seller’s stuff will not fit into the closets, it is not possible for all my stuff to fit in.  However, if a buyer sees meticulously organized closets, though half the seller’s belongings are packed away, the buyer believes that all their stuff will fit just as nicely.  Depersonalizing a home helps as well.  Taking down most family photos, cleaning the magnets and artwork off the fridge and removing the souvenirs from shelving around the home will allow for cleaner lines in the home making it and the photos of the home look better for marketing.   The same goes with furniture as too much furniture in rooms will make them seem small.  My friend Emily Wall who owns Wall to Wall Staging loves doing consults with homeowners and staging furniture to make a home look better.  Emily shares that the national statistic that professionally staged homes sell 9 days faster and for 19% more than non-staged homes.  Having a professional opinion on the decluttering and depersonalization of a home has value and should be considered for sellers looking to get the most amount of money with the least amount of headache for their home.  Also, having a vacant home staged will make a world of difference to how a buyer perceives a home, both online and in person.  Vacant homes make it hard for a lot of people to picture the space and how it can be utilized.  

If you are considering selling your home, I encourage you to reach out to me or one of the other great real estate agents we have locally sooner than later.  As an agent, it is our job to help ensure you have your home as ready as possible for the current market.  My mentor when I started in real estate was a gentleman named Andy Anderson.  Andy told me the worse the winters are north of us, the better our spring market will be.  This winter has been brutal up north and in the Midwest which should bode well for our market.   With Cherry Point bringing in a squadron of F-35s as well this summer, sellers are set up for a good opportunity to take advantage of the equity they have in their home.  By starting sooner, sellers will have more of a chance to get their house ready to take advantage of the spring market.  As a buyer, now would be the time to try to buy as competition for homes will only increase in the coming months.  From a long-term perspective, real estate is still a great buy here in Craven County and surrounding areas.  Let us know how we can help!