How to Prepare Your House For a Sale

So you’ve decided to sell up and buy a new house due to an expanding family or improved financial status or any other reason. In order to do so, you need to sell your own home – but what is the best way to prepare your house for a quick and profitable sale?

There are several things you can do that will entice a potential buyer to put in an offer for your home, some practical and some not so much. Here’s a quick run down of some steps most estate agents would advise you to take to make your house more appealing.

Carry Out Minor Repairs

You’ve probably known about that cracked kitchen floor tile or that damp bit of wall in the bedroom for quite a while but have never quite got round to doing anything about it. Well, now is the time to do it!

Carry out repairs to floor and wall tiles, patch any holes in walls, replace old burned out light bulbs, fix any leaking taps and make adjustments to doors and drawers that don’t close properly.

You should even consider painting your alls a neutral colour, as that bright pink you love so much is YOUR taste and you want your house to be a blank canvas to any potential buyers. Painting your walls an off white or magnolia will allow buyers to imagine their own colour schemes in your rooms, which is exactly what you want.

Wash, Clean, Rinse and Polish

Your house should look as much like a new house, like a show house, as possible when buyers come to view it. That unfortunately means that everything has to sparkle.

You need to get out the cleaning products and wash your windows, vacuum the carpets, scrub the bath, shower and sinks, polish your chrome, wipe down all your kitchen surfaces, clean the oven, wipe down your gloss work, clean out the fridge, dust your tables and wood, including getting rid of cobwebs in high corners, and replace any old, worn out towels and bedding.

Tidy your garden up too, jetwash your driveway and paths, clean out your gutters – the outside matters just as much, if not more, than the inside. It’s the first thing people see, after all!

If a potential buyer sees how much care you take of your home, the more confident they will be in purchasing from you.

Let It Go

Lastly, you need to remember that your home is no longer your home. It is a house, it is a product to be sold to the highest bidder. As much love as you’ve put into it over the years, look forward to doing the same for your new home and recognise that you need to let go of this one.

By disassociating yourself from your current property you’ll find it that much easier to sell and if it feels ‘cold’ to you to do so, then walk around your house, say goodbye to each and every room and imagine your future home, how much fun and enjoyment you’ll get from making it ‘yours’.

Most estate agents will tell you that a reluctant seller usually remains a seller for longer than those who have already moved on in their own minds!

Author Bio: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Shepherd Gilmour, estate agents in Manchester.

Category: Advice
Keywords: selling your house, selling property, property for sale, property to buy