If you’re wondering about the best way to sell a house fast, then preparation is key. Making sure your home is prepared properly for sale – including marketing photography and open homes – is crucial to making a good first impression, reducing the costs involved in selling a house, and generating significant interest online. Key steps typically involve the following:
Decluttering
The end goal of decluttering is to make your home look lighter, brighter, and more spacious for photographs and viewings. By creating more room and reducing visual clutter such as family photographs (which you might want to consider concealing for privacy in any case), you can stage your rooms more invitingly.
Deep Cleaning
Most people often find that after they’ve removed a lot of the clutter, the day-to-day dirt and grime in their home suddenly becomes much more apparent. A proper clean goes a long way to creating a fresh and inviting atmosphere for prospective buyers. Scrub the skirting boards and walls, wash the curtains, steam clean the carpets, mop the floors and wash the windows, light fixtures, and mirrors. If you need to, hire a professional cleaning service for a day – but don’t skip this step!
Repairs
If you’re hoping for a quick sale, chances are you might not have much time to focus on repairs or renovations. But even simple fixes can go a long way, such as straightening crooked doors, fixing broken or missing handles, ensuring all the lights have working bulbs in them and brushing up any chipped paint. These things may seem insignificant in isolation, but a few hiccups here and there might mean the difference between your house and another.
Gardening, a.k.a. increasing the ‘curb appeal’
It’s important to make sure that your home looks as fresh and welcoming on the outside as it does inside. While there may be limitations to what you can do, tidying up the garden by ensuring fences are repaired, clearing the paths, mowing the lawns, and doing things like adding mulch and simple plants in bright colours can change the look and feel of a property from the street entirely.
Staging
Having your home professionally staged – or dressed – can have significant returns in the long run. In fact, one Sydney company, Staging Professionals, estimates a 500% return on investment for staged properties, e.g., spending $2,000 means you could gain a $10,000 increase on your property value.
There are dedicated companies who you can pay to do this for you using ListReady, or your agent will be able to provide you with some advice.
By investing in these small upgrades to your home, you’ll be able to maximise the impact of your marketing campaign and draw the crowds you need to sell your property.
