WASHINGTON – March 13, 2012 – Pricing a home realistically gets potential buyers through the door, but how do you get them to fall in love with a home? An article at U.S. News & World Report offers the following tips for sellers.
• Add curb appeal: “Make sure the house is cleared of winter clutter, that windows are washed, that the front door is painted or clean,” says Brad Knapp, regional vice president for the National Association of Realtors® for Ohio and Michigan. “You have to give the house good curb appeal.”
• Declutter: Remove clutter from the home so that buyers can actually see everything the home has to offer. Any excess belongings of the sellers should be stored in the garage or in a storage unit.
• Be careful not to offend: “Hunters and fisherman often have game hanging on the walls,” Knapp notes. “Some people are offended, so get that off the walls and into the garage.”
• Consider staging: “It might behoove (sellers) to hire a professional stager to help them,” says Robert Simon, a professor at Cleveland State University. “You have to get it right so it looks lived in – but definitely not cluttered.”
• Complete routine maintenance: Make sure sellers complete obvious maintenance projects before the home is listed. Also, sellers need to realize that “people don’t care if you spent $15,000 fixing the roof. It’s worth nothing,” Simon says. “The market expects the roof to be in tip-top shape. You have to go above and beyond.”
Source: “Steps you can take to boost your home’s value,” U.S. News & World Report (March 5, 2012)
