Five tips to help you sell your house this spring
Feb 18, 2016, 5:04 PM
(AP Photo/John Bazemore)
(AP Photo/John Bazemore)
If you’re putting your house on the market this spring, here are five things to remember that could help speed up your sale.
No. 1: Declutter, declutter, declutter
If your house is crowded with extra furniture and lots of personal things, you might consider renting a small storage unit and stashing all your extras there temporarily.
Clean your closets and remove as much as you can from the tops of kitchen and bathroom counters. If you’ve painted any rooms in dark colors, repaint in neutrals.
“You want everything to look very generic,” Martha Appel, a designated broker for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, said. “You want your house to look like a model home.”
No. 2: Kitchens and baths need updating
Maybe you can’t afford to replace the cabinets and countertops, but you can replace the faucets and repaint the cabinets.
Choose a neutral paint color, but neutral does not mean your house has to be boring. Remove all the bottles, pills and cleaning materials from counters. Get rid of the knickknacks. Buy new towels. Throw away old dusty artificial plants and flowers.
No. 3: Stage the living areas of your home
You might want to temporarily rent more up-to-date furniture for your living and family rooms when you move out the old stuff. Make sure that the fireplace becomes the focal point of your living space by arranging chairs and sofas in front of the hearth.
No. 4: Clean out the garage
Buy a shop vacuum to clean all the dust and debris from the floor. Empty any open shelving as much as you can. Throw out old tools and window screens and sort all the hardware. If you have any storage units, empty them out and maybe move as much as you can to that storage unit you rented.
No. 5: Stage the exterior of your house, too
Pull out any dead plants or trees and replace them. In fact, if you don’t have a decent-sized tree in your yard, plant one. It’s a big selling point in sunny Arizona.
Clean out old pots and store them somewhere or fill them with fresh plants that will show off your house.
If your front door is looking shabby, maybe you can still replace it. A new front door can almost pay for itself when you sell, according to Remodeling Magazine. So will the replacement of a half-broken garage door.
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