Buying A Home
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If you are selling or have recently sold....

What did you do to the inside of your home to prepare for showings? I can only think to try to organize and declutter each room anything else? Tia.
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Re: If you are selling or have recently sold....

  • We had the concrete power washed making the patio, drive and entrance look brand spanking new.  We hid or took everything that was personal and took the realtors staging advice regarding furniture arrangement which meant just moving a couple of pieces and the guest room bed.
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  • What we did was go through each area of our home with a notepad and a camera.  We would look at the room as objectively as possible and write down anything we could think of that might discourage a buyer.  Then we'd stand in the middle of the room and take photos in every possible direction. 

    When we were all done with our walk-through, we went back through and looked at the photos - sometimes you'll spot something in a photograph that doesn't look right that while you were looking right at it seemed fine.  Then we fixed the problems, which ranged from installing a light bulb to painting the ceilings - and everything in between.

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  • We scrubbed out our appliances. Organized our pantry. And, we took most stuff out of closets so that they were at least 1/2 empty. Took down all photos of family. We left our outdoor lights on at night and we left interior lights on in the front of the house at night so people could see rooms from the street.

  • We've done a few projects that DH never did since he bought the house, like new carpet and paint in two bedrooms upstairs.  We rented a POD and moved a lot of furniture, clothes, toys, and stuff into it so it can be stored off site.  I packed up so much stuff! Our Realtor stressed having a clean and dry basement which mean there was a shitton of stuff we needed to get out of there!

    We also had the moss cleaned off the roof, the gutters cleaned again (to get everything that dropped since they were cleaned in the fall) and had bark dust spread a few days before we went on the market.

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  • Our realtor went with us room by room and told us what to do, right down to the color hand towels we needed to put in our powder room. I think having a professionals objective eye make suggestions was crucial. Have your realtor spend half an hour or more in your home making suggestions. To answer your question, we de cluttered, removed all pictures, put up more artwork, moved furniture around, and got the carpet professionally cleaned. The realtor told us not to do certain things, like re-grout, that we thought we needed to spend money on.
  • We touched up the paint and had the upstairs carpet pulled (there were a few bumps in it) and the carpet cleaned. We also moved some furniture around a little bit. I took down all the personal pictures and decluttered a lot. I also made sure all the closets/ pantry were organized and didn't have too much stuff in them.

    Good luck!

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  • Thanks ladies. I'm in the process of decluttering and we are having the house deep cleaned this weekend then the realtor is coming Monday to take pictures so I will have him assess what else needs to be done then. Thankfully our home was brand new when we purchased in 2006 so not many cosmetic things need to be done.
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  • imageCCinLove:
    Our realtor went with us room by room and told us what to do, right down to the color hand towels we needed to put in our powder room. I think having a professionals objective eye make suggestions was crucial. Have your realtor spend half an hour or more in your home making suggestions. To answer your question, we de cluttered, removed all pictures, put up more artwork, moved furniture around, and got the carpet professionally cleaned. The realtor told us not to do certain things, like re-grout, that we thought we needed to spend money on.
    Similar to this, our realtor paid for an interior designer to come in and do a 1 hour run through of our house.  Told us what to get rid of, gave us some ideas of where to move things, etc.  There is stuff we wouldn't have done, but after she recommended it and we did it- it made a HUGE difference (like getting rid of some extra bookshelves in our finished basement.  Opened it up much more!). 
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  • We rented a storage pod and took a few extra pieces of furniture out.  Also took some of the things from our closets and put them into storage so they were not over-filled so they looked more spacious.  And finally we put about 1/3 of what we had stored in the basement out as well.  Then we deep cleaned and organized what was left. The removal of the excess furniture I think made the biggest impact. I took down some personal photos but we didn't have a lot. And I did so more for our privacy than anything. We still live here after all.
  • - Moved 40% of items into storage including from the closet. The more clothing, shoes, bags in a closet the smaller it looks. I moved everything to storage that I didn't need for that immediate season (we were relocating regardless if the house had sold within a month anyway). 

    - Carpets and flooring professional steam cleaned (including hardwood and tile)

    - Staged each room (although when we moved we emptied the house - at least we had great pictures and for the initial broker opens and public opens we did have furniture in the home)

    - Had windows professionally cleaned inside/out

    - Had our house cleaners do a complete and deep cleaning including inside all appliances

    - I organized/cleaned out all cabinets, drawers, and closets (people always like to open everything)

    - I had a landscaper groom the yard/trees

    - Our hallways and stairwell were in need of paint touch up and our master bedroom color I always hated so we painted it neutral. Also touched up moldings/baseboards.

    - Took a repair inventory of each room (new window screen, tighten towel rack, etc etc) 

    - I liked to put out fresh bright daisies but I know some people like to just have plants - green is a sign of life which gives a good vibe for the house. 

    - I put out fresh brightly colored plants in porch hanging basket to give a pop of color as you come into the home. 

    - I increased pool cleaning from 1 x per week to 2 x per week. 

    - power washed/scrubbed garage out

    - had porch and deck restained/sealed

    - had my heating/cooling company in to give the system a look over and cleaning (I didn't want to be caught off guard with any surprise issues upon their inspection) 

     

    A lot of my list includes professionals/specialists. My husband travels a lot and his new company paid for our entire relocation and relocation needs so we didn't have a lot of out of pocket expenses but there isn't much reason, if you are handy, that you can't do most stuff on your own.  We may have gone above and beyond but we wanted a quick sale and wanted our home to look pristine to help that goal along. We accepted an offer almost three months later. 

  • The only thing I did that hasn't already been mentioned by another poster is that I went out and bought fairly inexpensive new bedding for the master bed. It gave the bed a fresh new and clean look with soft neutral bedding. I also have a favorite candle co. that makes the greatest "edible" scented candles. I would burn my banana nut bread candle in the kitchen an hour before every showing. I had read that people like the smell of something sweet baking. I kid you not- the guy who bought our house told the realtor that he didn't want to leave because it smelled so good. Good luck!
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