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While no one likes moving, it’s a necessary transition that practically everyone will have to perform at some point in their life. Before you can even make the move, however, you need to sell your home first. In the game of selling, appearance is everything. That’s why preparing for the open house is so vital when it comes to selling your home. It can be easy to miss certain details, however, that could be the deciding factor that makes or breaks a sale. To ensure that you exceed your expectations at the open house and make the best sale possible on your home, you should consider these tips and ideas.

Preparing for an open house – Lighting

Perhaps you noticed that when you enter a home that is bright and lit up, the entire place just feels a lot bigger and cleaner. For whatever reason, humans tend to react positively to bright homes. Darker homes can often make you feel enclosed and not necessarily in a good way. That’s why lighting is so important to consider for your open house.

You don’t want people to come in and think that your home feels cramped or oppressive. Everyone wants to think that their home is spacious and offers a lot of space to grow in. Even those who prefer tinier homes still want to feel as though each room has a lot of space. You can offer that illusion by playing with the lighting.

For example, the best way to increase the lighting in your home is to let in natural light. If your house has a lot of windows, then this is going to be easy for you. Simply pull back the blinds or curtains and let that light shine into your home. It’s not a bad way to check on the views from those windows either. If there’s a giant bush that has overgrown and blocks most of your window, then it’d be a good idea to chop it down so more light can enter into the room.

If you have lots of windows

For those who aren’t fortunate enough to have a lot of windows to let in natural light, then you’re going to need to do what you can with artificial lights. Sometimes all you need to do is replace light bulbs with ones that offer a brighter illumination. However, it is important that the light doesn’t offer a blinding contrast that can make the rest of your home bleed out in terms of color. You’re not looking to bleach out everything.

That’s why it’s typically a good idea to have a few lights in key parts of the home that you, especially, wish to highlight and that make a space appear bigger. It’s best to play around with the lighting in your home for a while. See what works best and stick with it. You may want to consider some home staging advice from your realtor at your open house or an interior designer. They typically know a few lighting secrets that can really illuminate your home.

Besides adding in more light to your home, you should also have all of the lights on. Again, this is to make your home appear bright, but it also makes the home cozy and welcoming. It’s easier for potential buyers to imagine themselves living the home if they’re able to walk right in and feel welcomed by warm and bright lights. Any open house needs lots of light to show the property well.

Preparing for an open house – Landscaping

Home staging goes far beyond just how your house looks on the inside. The outside and surrounding area are just as important. Most judgments that potential buyers are going to make at an open house begins right from the front yard as they pull into the driveway. Would you be excited to see the inside of a home when you pull in on a cracked driveway and notice that there are weeds growing in the grass? It doesn’t exactly make for the best welcoming message.

When it comes to selling your home, the exterior matters considerably. As such, you should attempt to mow the lawn regularly and keep the grass freshly cut. To ensure that it is green and healthy looking, you should water the grass about a half hour before the opening of the open house. With a bright green lawn, your buyers are going to easily imagine themselves sprawling out on it during the summer and cooking some barbecue.

Its not just a lawn

Besides just the lawn, you should make sure that the garden–and lawn itself–is free of weeds. Trim the garden, too, to make sure that it looks well-cared for. Even if you have long since given up on your garden, you should at least make it look like there was an attempt to love plants. The easiest way to do that would be to just tear the remaining plants out of it and re-plant only a few fully-grown plants. Since it’s likely that the new owners will want to plant their own garden and will rip out the plants you have there anyway, at most, you just want to make sure that your current garden is limited in scale and trimmed.

In regards to the actual exterior of your home, a good power wash certainly won’t hurt. It can actually make your home look a lot newer and fresh. If your front door is old and battered, then you might want to consider replacing it. The same goes for old doormats that have clearly been used and abused. This is the welcome center of your home. If it doesn’t look great, then you’re not going to make those buyers feel excited and welcomed as they enter your home.

Final touches on the exterior of your home should be focused on appearance. Any trash cans or bins should be placed somewhere that they cannot see them. They don’t want to see your trash. You should also make sure that your mail or newspaper is picked up either by yourself or the realtor during the open house as quickly as possible. Piles of mail and newspapers can look unprofessional.

Kitchen

Home staging in the kitchen is vital. For many buyers, the kitchen is going to be their primary room of interest. If this area doesn’t meet their standards, then you can be sure they’ll be leaving to visit the next house. The most obvious rule of thumb here is to ensure that everything is clean. Wipe down those counters, make sure the oven is clean, and take great care to ensure there aren’t any crumbs anywhere. Your pantry door and cupboards should all be closed. While it doesn’t hurt to have a bowl of fruit or flowers on the counters, you should try to limit the amount of clutter.

It also doesn’t hurt to have a bowl of cookies for buyers to have. Nothing quite feels like a welcome feeling like a warm tray of cookies. To take that up a notch, you may want to be overly ambitious and cook a few different kinds of cookies in order to pertain to guests of varying tastes and dietary restrictions.

Again, you want to make sure that the trash can in the kitchen is placed out of view. You don’t want people looking through your trash. You also want to limit the chance of a bad odor from stemming from the trash can due to a meal your family had the night before.

Fact sheets should be be ready for visitors in the kitchen. This is usually one of the first rooms that people investigate, and so they can take a cookie and read over the fact sheet at their leisure in the welcoming space that you’ve created for them. remember kitchen is one of the most crucial areas when preparing for open house.

Open house – Bathrooms

Perhaps the heaviest cleaning that you’re going to need to perform is in the bathroom. No one wants to go into a bathroom and feel as though it’s actually ever been used in the past. Instead, they prefer to think that the bathroom is new and untouched. You can offer them this illusion by cleaning the bathroom until it shines. There’s also a few little details that can make it look professional and clean.

For example, the toilet lid should always be closed. Not only does this ensure that the inside bowl isn’t visible, but it can also help cut down on potential odors. Again, it also makes it appear as though the bathroom is brand new. This is an excellent detail of home staging that not every homeowner considers.

Another aspect is to remove all of your showering and personal items during an open house. Your razor, soap, deodorant, everything you use to prepare yourself for the day should be away and off of the counter or out of your shower. You want to make your buyers see the bathroom as their own. They can’t do that if they have a physical reminder of you within that space. This is a critical element when preparing for an open house.

Last Details

When your home is clean, push back the curtains. Place the cookies are on the counter. You still have a few last few details that you might want to consider. The first is temperature. While the temperature of the home may vary depending on the weather outside, you should typically try to keep your home within the 68-72 degree range. This creates a comfortable space rather than being too chilly or too warm.

You may also feel like it’s a good idea to add in scents or candles. This isn’t always the case. Sometimes these scents can become overpowering and can give people headaches. You don’t want to drive them away because of a strong scent. Others may believe that the scents are an attempt to cover up an odor in the home. It’s best to just leave them out and keep your home clean to prevent odors from occurring.

Finally, if the weather is pleasant, open all of your windows for fresh air.

Using a mobile storage solution from Box-n-Go is an ideal route to de-cluttering your home and preparing for open house. Southern California residents can have a storage container delivered to their home. This will allow them to de-clutter and have a quick sale. One of the major points made repeatedly by home experts who try and get the best price for a home is that good presentation is vital.  When any general makeover is carried out they always insist on a lack of ‘clutter’. Especially when the finished homes are presented for sale. This “home staging” as it is called is beneficial as real estate agents claim that that a well presented and clutter free home will sell quickly.

Contact Box-n-Go at https://www.boxngo.com or by calling 1-877-269-6461.

When you’re getting ready to sell a house, it’s common to run into one of two problems. If you’re living in the house, it’s probably filled with your belongings and decorated to suit your tastes. If you’re not, it’s probably empty, full of echoes, and looking decidedly not-homey. Home staging can help you remedy these issues and sell your home faster and for more money. It can easily become the most inexpensive and the most profitable solution for getting the most money for your home.

Often staging the home involves removing the clutter. This is where Box-n-Go comes in. We can help you move the clutter from your home and into the storage easily and economically. use the below tips to prepare your home for sale by improving its curb appeal and staging it properly for the visitors to be able to see your home’s value. Box-n-Go is your perfect home staging option. With Box-n-go it is easy to showcase the true character and value of your home.

What is Staging?

Staging is the process of arranging furniture and decor to help your house look its best. This makes it easier for potential buyers to imagine themselves living there — something that’s not so easy to do when the space is totally empty or cluttered with your belongings. It is easy with Box-n-go! Get a container or two delivered to your home. there is no rush in  loading them. You can do it over several days, after work, or on the weekend. We can even help you with loading the heavy items. Once you are ready, we will come back and pick up the storage units and take them to our warehouse. There your belongings will be safe and secure for as long as you want us to store them.

Depending on the current state of your house, home staging can be simple or involved. It might be as easy as cleaning up and decluttering. On the other end of the spectrum, it might be as complicated as remodeling, painting, and renting furniture. Home staging will help you leave a positive impression with potential buyers. Impression that counts most.

No matter the current state of your house, these tips can help you get your house ready for a sale.

1. Start Outside

Have you ever driven past a house and fallen in love with it? That’s due in no small part to outdoor staging. Curb appeal is real — and it can have a big impact on the number of showings you get.

To start, make sure the lawn and shrubbery are in perfect condition. Re-sod any bare spots, rake up leaves, and make sure to trim the trees. Repaint any areas with peeling or faded paint, and consider refreshing the shutters, door, or window frames with a new color. Once you have a neat space to work with, dress up the entry with a few thoughtful touches. A wreath on the door, beautiful flowers in planters, and an adorable welcome mat can work wonders when it comes to drawing in potential buyers.

2. Get Rid of Clutter

Clutter is the enemy of home sales. It’s distracting to potential buyers, and it makes your house look unsightly and messy. Before you do anything else, go through the house and pack up all of your personal items. This includes:

• Family pictures
• Refrigerator magnets
• Toys and games
• Knick-knacks and mementos
• Magazines and stray books
• Items in “junk drawers”
• Counter top appliances and cookbooks

Don’t forget about your furniture during the decluttering process. Too many pieces, especially if they’re large, make your home feel small and crowded. To start, cut your furniture down by 25%. If it still looks crowded, take away a few more items.

As you’re packing, resist the urge to put these items in the closet; they’ll just crowd the space and make it difficult for buyers to get a sense of the closet size. Instead, put them in a storage unit offsite. At the end of this process, your home should have a more neutral look that allows buyers to picture themselves living there.

3. Do a Deep Clean

The next step in the home-staging process is cleaning. We’re not talking about a quick refresh — we mean a serious deep cleaning that gets to every nook and cranny of your home. If you’re on a budget, you can do it yourself. If not, it’s a good idea to hire professionals to scrub the house for you. After living in a house for a while, it’s easy to miss dirty spots. A fresh set of eyes can help you spot and eliminate hidden grime.

If you’re cleaning on your own, here are some spots to remember:

• Clean and repaint the inside of cabinets and drawers
• Remove everything from the counter top
• Move major appliances and clean under and behind them
• Dust fans, light fixtures, baseboards, and the tops of cabinets
• Wash windows and baseboards
• Clean fingerprints and hand prints from walls
• Wipe down trash cans
• Deep clean sinks and fix dripping faucets

Arguably, cleaning is the most important part of home staging. It allows your other efforts to take center stage and makes visitors feel at home. A dusty baseboard or a stained wall is easy to ignore when you’re living in the home. To potential buyers, it can be a huge turn-off.

4. Select and Arrange Your Furniture

Furniture is an underrated part of the selling process, but it can have a big impact on potential buyers. Imagine that you walk into a house and it has a ratty sofa and stained chairs; your attention goes right to those imperfections, making it impossible to focus on the rest of the house.

That’s why furniture selection is important in home staging. To start, evaluate your furniture. Is it neat, clean, and modern? If so, keep it for the staging. If it’s outdated, worn, or an unappealing color, send it to storage. Then, you can rent new pieces to supplement the remaining items. This can seem like a big expense when you’re strapped for cash, but it almost always results in better listing photos and more positive home tours.

As you’re choosing furniture, opt for neutral colors. Rich cream, sand, and beige tones create an upscale look. Lighter shades also help your space feel airy.

Once you have key furniture pieces, it’s time to arrange them. Instead of pushing everything against the wall, try moving it in. This creates a more spacious feeling and allows buyers to examine the entire room. Not sure where to start? A professional home stager can help create a contemporary design that will appeal to your buyers.

5. Add in Tasteful Decor Pieces

Does your house look bare? It’s time to add in a few decor pieces to complete the look. Aim for pieces that aren’t too crazy — this can turn off buyers with very different styles. Instead, aim for touches that make your home feel loved and lived in.

Some options include:

• Bowl of fresh fruit in the kitchen
• Centerpiece or runner on the dining room table
• A few tasteful pieces of art on the walls; abstracts, florals, and landscapes are safe
• Vase of flowers in the entry or on a coffee table
• Candles or small pieces of art on side tables
• Rugs under furniture groupings
• Colorful throw pillows on sofas and chairs

6. Make Small Upgrades

Sometimes, small upgrades can make a big difference. As part of your home staging, focus on projects that are affordable and easy to do yourself. Some great projects are:

• Replace old cabinet hardware with new, more modern pieces
• Repaint kitchen cabinets and backslash
• Polish wood floors or clean carpets
• Change out old or stained light switch covers
• Repaint dirty or stained walls

Do you have visible areas of the home that need repairs? Now’s the time to take care of them. Many buyers are looking for homes that are move-in ready, so by handling all repairs, you can set their minds at ease.

7. Create a Light, Bright Atmosphere

When buyers are looking for homes, either online or in person, lighting matters. To start, make the most of your natural light. Switch out heavy curtains for sheer or light-colored versions. In small rooms, create a more open feeling by replacing them with blinds or shades.

Then, look to your electric lighting. Replace any burnt-out bulbs — that way, buyers can see every part of the house clearly. To that end, make sure you have enough lighting. Add floor lamps or table lamps in darker rooms to create a cozy glow during evening showings. If you have fluorescent lights in the kitchen, swap it out for a more pleasant incandescent or LED fixture. Have a dark hallway? Add a few wall sconces, or simply place a lamp on a hall table.

Don’t forget about outdoor lighting. After all, buyers will be driving past or coming for showings after dark. Replace your flickering porch light with a warm, bright version. If you have a dark walkway, consider adding an additional light for safety.

8. Don’t Forget About Scent

The final part of home staging is scent. Make sure that every odor is scrubbed from the air — this is especially important if you have pets, if you smoke, or if you like to cook pungent foods. Air out the house and use gentle air fresheners if necessary. Don’t forget about common culprits like the bathroom, refrigerator, and kitchen sink. It’s also a good idea to swap your existing trash cans for new versions; that way, old smells don’t hang around.

9. Prioritize Staging Efforts

Between the upgrades and furniture rentals, home staging can get expensive quickly. If you’re on a limited budget, consider prioritizing your efforts. Start with the entry and the living room, move to the master bedroom next, and finish with the kitchen. For other rooms, particularly spare bedrooms, you can opt to leave them empty or use your own furniture for basic staging. That doesn’t mean you should neglect cleaning and repairs in those spaces — the entire house should be neat and spotless.

Home staging takes time and money, but it’s one of the most important parts of the selling process. By turning your home into an attractive, neutral area, you can help buyers imagine their own belongings in the space. Whether you’re staging just for the listing photos or leaving the decor in place for showings, it can speed up the process and bring in more offers. That way, you can get a great price and move on to your next home without dragging out the listing time.

Box-n-Go can help you take away your personal items and clutter and store them safely until you are ready to have them delivered to your new home. Our service is easy on your wallet and convenient. Just call us at 1-877-269-6461 and we will take care of all the details.

How to Sell Your House in 2019

So, you have found yourself at that point of selling your house and moving on. Maybe you’re downsizing to a smaller house because the kids have finally left the nest, or you got a job in a new city and need to relocate, or finally, you retired and want to head south to warmer climates. Whatever your reason, you’re ready to sell you home. Luckily for you, we put together a comprehensive guide for first-time and seasoned home sellers. Continue reading to find out how to sell your house this year.

1) Hire a Home Inspector

You’re probably thinking wait, isn’t that what the buyer is going to do? You’re not wrong. When a buyer has made an offer and you’ve accepted it, the buyer will most likely hire a home inspector of their own. So, why would you hire a home inspector? First, if a home inspector turns up something that’s in need of repair, wouldn’t you prefer to resolve it long before entering into negotiations with a potential buyer?

In fact, if you end up needing to make repairs expected to take weeks to fix, you may lose that buyer altogether. Hiring a home inspector is a proactive approach to getting your home ready to sell. Known as a pre-listing home inspection, you can find out the exact condition of your property, what repairs need to be addressed beforehand, fix them, then focus on the next task to get your home sold fast.

Also, knowing the condition of your property will further assist you during the negotiation phase with potential buyers. As you may already be aware, since you’ve already bought a home yourself, buyers often use their home inspection as a way of getting concessions from sellers, such as asking you to drop your list price. If you’ve already addressed any repairs that turned up in an inspection report, it is less likely that any new repairs will come up and impact your position during negotiations.

2) Make Repairs and Small Upgrades to Your Home

After your inspector makes a comprehensive list of repairs you should make, it’s time to get started either making the repairs yourself or contracting the right person to do them. This is may also be a great time to make small upgrades to your home that will help your house to sell fast. You don’t need to renovate your kitchen or anything, but that red accent wall that was extremely popular a decade ago might need a fresh coat of paint more neutral in color.

Understand Your Homes Selling Points

First, try understanding your home’s selling points and then try to highlight those features to make them really stand out. Not sure what those features are in your home? Just think about what sold you on your home when you first toured it. Was it the kitchen, the open floor plan, or that personal studio space? These are the features you want to concentrate on because they are most likely to sell your home again.

Brighten Your Home

You also want to think about ways to brighten your home and improve your curb appeal. Simple ways to brighten your home is painting your ceilings white and choosing a wall color that is brighter and more neutral. Though you may have enjoyed that accent wall, not everyone has the same taste as yourself. You want to make your house appeal to the largest audience possible to not only sell your home fast but to also invite more offers.

Improve Your Curb Appeal

Furthermore, improving your curb appeal is crucial for future homebuyers. You only make a first impression once, and the curb appeal of your home is the first impression of your home for potential buyers. Though you may not necessarily have to paint the exterior of your house to impress homebuyers, simple things like trimming your hedges, freshly mowed lawn and making sure any exterior lights aren’t burnt out can go a long way. Even freshly laid beauty bark and newly planted flowers can really make your yard pop!

Though this can be a lot of work, you will be happy that you did it because homes often sell faster and for more money when these small upgrades are done. If you don’t want to do all that work yourself, don’t know how to, or just don’t have the time, there are concierge type services that can do it all for you. This way you can focus on moving to your next home.

3) Declutter and Prep Your House to Sell

There’s an expression in real estate, “clutter can cost a sale.” Decluttering and prepping your home is something you want to really focus on. Especially if you’ve lived in your house for five years or more, there is a good chance you’ve collected a lot of stuff. Don’t worry it happens!

Renting storage units are becoming an increasingly popular method to decluttering one’s home before selling it. The idea is to limit the amount of stuff in your house so that potential buyers can envision themselves (and their stuff) in that space. Even removing photos is a great way to allow people touring your home to think about what they would hang on those walls or what they’d place on that fire mantel. Basically, you’re trying to present your house as a canvass from which potential buyers can create the next chapter of their lives.

Furthermore, by eliminating the majority of your stuff in your house earlier you can start deep cleaning your home more easily. And yes, you want to deep clean your home. If you sold your car to someone (not a dealership) you would probably wash it and vacuum the inside of it before you let someone test drive it, right? Well, the same goes for selling your house. You want to present your home in its best possible light so that it sells fast and you get competing offers.

Also, don’t just focus on deep cleaning just the inside of your home. You can use a pro wash to clean the outside of your home as well. In fact, products like those from https://abcopro.com.au/ make this process even simpler. With their innovative technology, equipment, and products, they empower commercial cleaners by taking out the complexity in cleaning. Their effective solutions streamline the cleaning process, ensuring that your home’s exterior shines as brightly as its interior. Just like using a pro wash to effortlessly clean your car’s exterior, ABCO Pro’s products can transform the way you clean your home’s outdoor surfaces.

4) Find a Real Estate Agent

Finding a real estate agent is easy, finding a great real estate agent can be more of a challenge. Getting referrals and reading online reviews is a great way to start narrowing down your options, and hopefully, you’ll end up with a couple of good potential candidates to interview.

You’ll want to understand what you’re looking for when hiring a real estate agent to represent your best interests. Here are some questions to consider asking any potential candidate:

• How many clients have you served this year?
• Has a client ever filed a complaint against you?
• What is your fee? (3% commission is beginning to be replaced by 1% – 1.5% in many areas)
• What services do you offer beyond negotiations and escrow?

These are just a few questions to consider asking while interviewing real estate agents. A more comprehensive list of interview questions can be found here.

After you decide on a real estate agent, you and your agent should come up with a plan of action. This plan should include a timeline, from the pricing of your home and getting it listed on MLS to open houses. It should also include when a price reduction strategy needs to take effect to get your home sold. You and your agent should be on the same page at all times and a plan of action will help ensure that.

5) Price Your Home to Sell

Now is the time to find out what price you should list your home! You can start by using online tools to help you get an idea of what your home is currently worth. This is a great starting point to get an idea of your home’s worth, but you should never set your sights on a single number and expect it to happen. Market conditions change all the time and so too does buyer behavior. Being open-minded about pricing your home as well as adjusting price is key to get your home sold.

Another option that many homeowners do to get a list price for their home is to hire a home appraiser. Home appraisers are licensed professionals that will assess the value of your house based on the state of your property and overall housing market conditions. They will look at the size of your property, the interior and exterior conditions of your house, any upgrades, additions or home improvements you’ve done, and then calculate your home’s worth based on the local market conditions.

Looking at comparables of recently sold homes in your area will also help you settle on a price with your real estate agent. These homes should be similar in size, location, and sold within the last few months. Anything outside of those parameters would not be considered true comparables and could give you false information for pricing your home.

Furthermore, you want to be strategic about your pricing. You want your house to sell fast while being competitive for current market conditions. Instead of lumping the price of your house in with others in the area, strategize your pricing based on your home’s selling features. In other words, if there are three houses for sale in the same area as your own and priced at $350,000, you might be able to justify $360,000 or more because you have a larger lot size or maybe you’re located in a popular neighborhood.

6) Get Professional Photos Taken of Your Home

Nothing sells a home faster than professional photos. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. They are searching online, looking at every home that comes up for sale within their filtered interests the moment it’s listed. If your house is being represented online by poorly shot photography, your listing will see very little traffic. Not to mention, it has been widely observed that listing your house with professionally shot photos, on average, sell for more money than other listings.

Furthermore, 3D walking tours along with aerial photography that show a bird’s eye view of one’s home and its surrounding area have become increasingly popular with buyers looking online. Many agencies include some or all of these services as a component of their overall services to you as a seller. However, you should ask while interviewing your real estate agent what services are provided, so you don’t find yourself paying out of pocket later. Just remember, the better you represent your house online, the faster it will sell.

7) List Your Home to Sell

Your real estate agent will get your home listed online on MLS (Multiple Listing Service), in order to l start showing up on real estate search platforms to potential buyers.

You may be wondering when is the best time to list your home? If you’re thinking about waiting for a specific season, then you might be waiting for nothing. In 2016, Redfin analyzed more than 7 million home sales to identify specific seasonal trends in homes being sold. What was determined was that though spring was slightly better for homes that sold within 30 days and for above asking price, winter was surprisingly a close second. What plays a bigger role in a house being sold quickly and/or above asking price has more to do with current market conditions than the season a house is sold.

Also, don’t limit the marketing of your house to your real estate agent and online search. Market your house yourself! Spread the word through your family and friends, share your listing on social media, send out emails asking people to share your listing with others, and even advertising with online ads are ways of getting your house in front of more people and increase the chance of selling your home faster.

8) Have Open Houses and Personal Showings

Your first open house is what you’ve been working towards and now it’s about to happen. It’s time to step up your game and stage your home to sell. Here is a list of things to consider that will really help you make your house shine:

• Clear the clutter: You may have already transferred most of your belongings to a storage unit by now. Focus on just cleaning up the clutter that gets left out on countertops and tables. Put away newspapers, mail or magazines, or if you have children help them pick up their toys.
• Deep clean your house: Nothing turns off a buyer more than an unclean bathroom. That could also be said about the rest of your house. Now more than ever is that time to wash your windows, window sills, and scrub your grimy glass shower doors.
• Add white accents: White accents such as flowers or towels in the bathroom create a sense of welcome cleanliness.
• Arrange furniture: You don’t have to necessarily rent furniture to stage your home. You can most likely use what you have. The key is to limit the number of furniture pieces in any one room and then arrange them in a way that’s inviting to people as they enter the room.
• Bring in light: Think about removing your curtains or keeping them drawn back to allow as much light into your house as possible. If you have rather large elaborate curtains, consider storing them away until you get to your next home.
• Showcase your floors: Floors are key feature homebuyers are looking at, especially if you have wood floors. Show them off by removing any rugs or unneeded furniture so that more of your flooring can be seen. If you have wood floors, think about getting them polished to really make them pop!
• Create a welcoming ambiance: You may have heard about that old trick of lighting a candle that smells like freshly baked cookies? Well, it’s not wrong, but a single candle might not do the trick. Focus on reducing odors in your home. If you have a mudroom, or a cat or dog, use a neutralizing spray for a few days before an open house to limit any odors that you may not actually realize are there.
• Organize all closets and drawers: Homebuyers touring your home will most likely look in your closets to determine space and, frankly, to see if their stuff will fit in there. Also, they will likely open kitchen drawers and cabinets as well, so make sure everything is nice and tidy.
• Dust: Concentrate on all the areas that you’ve most likely have turned a blind eye to for some time, like ceiling fans, baseboards, on top of doorways, appliances, etc.
• Make your entrance inviting: If the exterior of your house has outdated light fixtures or worn out address numbers, consider replacing them along with your welcome mat. A new mat is always inviting to people touring your home.
• Secure your valuables: If you didn’t already store your valuables away in the storage unit you rented, you’ll want to make sure that these are not kept in plain sight. In fact, if you have a safe of some kind, that would be a perfect place to store your valuables while open houses and home tours are taking place.

Unlike open houses that are planned in advance, personal showings can happen at any point during the home selling process. The key is to be flexible and maintain your home’s cleanliness to make it easier on yourself in case of unexpected tours that may just pop up at moment’s notice. You want to make a great first impression every time!

10) Have a Plan in Case Your Home Doesn’t Sell Quick Enough

You and your real estate agent should have already gone over this beforehand, but not every house sells after the first open house. There are many factors at play and depending on the condition of the housing market for your area, your real estate agent may have to use some other strategies in their arsenal to get your house sold.

If it’s lowering the price of your home or holding more open houses, you’ll want to agree on what the next steps should be in case your house isn’t seeing any offers.

11) Negotiate the Selling Price of Your Home

One thing to consider is that the buyer is trying to get the absolute best price they can, while you’re doing the exact same. There will be multiple factors to consider as each home sold and purchased is different. For example, if it’s a buyer’s market that means the buyer has the upper hand because there are multiple listings with fewer offers being made. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make huge concessions in order to sell your home.

This is where your agent really steps up. They will help you navigate the negotiation process, and will give you their advice on how to proceed when offers are being made. Luckily, you interviewed and hired the right agent, so you know they have your best interests in mind. There are several factors and tactics to consider when entering this phase. Your agent will help you every step of the way as you navigate through the negotiation process.

You most likely have made many great memories in your home. Your children may have grown up in your house and marks of their heights years past still scar the wall near the kitchen. It’s difficult, but try to separate yourself – emotionally – from your house. Whatever your memories may be, just remember they are not lost, but they also have no place in negotiations. Try to remain objective during this process and rely on your real estate agent for advice and how to proceed.

12) Sign and Close

This is the moment you and your agent have been working towards. You’ve agreed on a price with the buyers, any and all inspections and appraisals of your home have been completed, and you are now signing the papers to sell your house. Congratulations, you’ve done it!

Source: Redfin