How To Prepare Your Home for Sale

Preparing your home for sale is one of the best things you can do to get top dollar for your property. Think of your house as an investment that you paid long and hard for over the years. All those mortgages, home repairs and home improvements have to count for something, right?

So how do you stage a home to sell for its highest value? Follow these tips to ensure your house gets its fair share of viewers and potential buyers:

Declutter

The very first thing you should do to prepare your home for sale is to eliminate all the clutter that's lying around the house.

Think of it as a large-scale cleaning ritual that will benefit both you and the buyer in so many ways. One, you won't have to bring all those stuff and move them when the house gets sold, and two, potential buyers will get to see all that real estate and then they can envision how they can use that space.

The key word here is to depersonalize. Remove anything that could give viewers a hint of your style. Take down that coin collection hanging in your wall. The antique figurine has to be stashed or kept away from plain view.

Do an inventory of all the things in your house and divide them into two categories- the ones you want to keep, and the junk items. Hold a garage sale, donate them to the nearest charity or throw out the junk! Do a room by room search- start on the ground floor, work your way up and finally, the garage or the basement.

Follow these tips so you can make the most of your time before relocating to your new home or apartment. You can also hire a professional organizer to get it done if you don't have too much time.

Optimize

A crowded house does not look good come selling time. Aside from throwing away the things you don't need and the ones that have outlived their usefulness, you should optimize your home's space. This means that any home viewer should be able to step into any area of your home and get a feel for the total space.

Keep a few pieces of key furniture that you really like. If you can't decide, there's always an option to rent storage space for stashing in items that hold sentimental value. You're aiming for a beautiful-looking, organized room that anyone can appreciate.

Organize

You'll want potential buyers to take a glimpse of your home, come inside and see the rooms. You'll want them to have a feeling of happiness, and doubly so if they have kids.

Don't forget to organize your kid's rooms as such so that it looks presentable 24/7. If you have playrooms, allot some time and make sure that it's presentable. The image that each room should convey is the image of your visitor's kids playing in the room as if the house is already bought. This will make them feel at home and appeal to their emotional side.

The bottom line here is that your viewers will not want to see a cluttered playroom that's obviously been played with by children they don't know. Clean up the mess, organize the toys and throw out the things you don't need. You will be surprised at the benefits this step can bring!

Storage

Is there such a thing as making all your important items disappear without giving any of it away? Yes, and the answer is storage. More specifically, it's maximizing your storage space.

Let's take for example, clothes. If you have all these clothes lying around and the closets are full, you may want to look up creative storage ideas on the web or with the help of a professional organizer. Implementation of a few storage ideas here and there will really make a difference.

Reorganizing may take up the better part of the day but it sure adds exceptional value to home preparation that it's all worth it in the end.

Adding To Your Home's Curb Appeal

How do you make a good first impression when a potential buyer comes up the driveway and takes a look at your house? You add to the overall curb appeal.

Here are some inexpensive curb appeal upgrades you can do that will increase your property's value tenfold:

Upgrade Your Garage Door

The first things you'll see as you pull up to your home are the front door and the garage door. You can bet that passers-by, viewers and neighbors get to see this as well. Updating your garage door will make a whole lot of difference in curb appeal. If you're stuck for ideas, why not go with windowed or a carriage-style garage door?

Upgrade Your Landscape

Mow the lawn and make it green. Eliminate any debris, fallen branches and weeds to make it look neater. Hire a gardener or do a DIY and plant flowers, bushes and trees in the best possible places. Take hold of plenty of mulch and spread it around to enhance the look of your landscape.

Add Some Lighting

Well-placed lighting on both interior and exterior can make your house more appealing without you doing any real home improvement projects. Some accent lights installed along the walkway and in the planters, and opting for more varied hues can really make a difference in the atmosphere and elegance of your home.

Paint Your House

A fresh coat of paint is considered to be one of the cheapest curb appeal upgrades homeowners can use to increase their home's sale value. It's easy, quick and you can get a huge return of investment down the road. Adding a coat of neutral-colored paint will make your house look new and appealing, especially to first-time home buyers.

Here are some more home improvement ideas that you can do now

• Put out a new welcome mat. It's a nice touch!
• Remove family photos, graduation pictures and other personal items on the walls and on shelves.
• Keep furniture to a minimum.
• Make some repairs.
• Clean bathrooms, kitchens and places where there are pungent odors.

Every homeowner has stuff that they hold close to their heart, and you are no exception as a prospective home seller. While such property may have or lack an actual value to your buyers, we always develop a strong emotional attachment to such assets, and the process of de-cluttering your home and taking out these items to make our homes the buyers’ focal point is a difficult step to take.

From experience, if you hire the services of professional organizers in preparation for the imminent sale of your home will not only prove to be cost effective, but it will also save you the stress.

Come to think of it, a professional home organizer has no shred of emotional attachment to your property or home in general. As such, this professional can organize and prepare your home for sale in the best possible way which can give your home its actual value.

I am Elsa Elbert, the owner founder of Composed Living. The idea of transforming our own lives to live in a beautiful place we created, inspired me to become a professional organizer. I hope my helpful tips can help bring order and beauty to the chaos of our daily lives.