5 Things Sellers Should Know Before Listing

Stay ahead of the competition by purchasing a pre-listing home inspection

Getting a home inspection before listing your home allows potential buyers to find out everything about your house up front, which can help them put in an offer quickly and confidently. It also enables you to take more time prior to listing your home to research and secure the best price for any updates needed. Lastly, completing repairs before listing your home will give you more negotiating power when offers start rolling in! 

Stage your home to show off its best features

Staging your home will allow potential buyers to see your home’s worth, incentivizing them to present an offer reflecting its maximum value. Staging attracts buyers by adding contemporary and stylish furnishings create a clean aesthetic slate, enabling buyers to see themselves living in the space. It can maximize the full potential of your home’s floor plan, unique features, and ultimately its sale price.

Ensure the first impression is a lasting impression

Sprucing up the exterior of your home is equally important to getting the interior in top shape! Simply by keeping the front yard or porch clean, and brightening it up with a few shrubs or potted plants, you can create a fresh and inviting first look at your home. Give your front door a fresh coat of paint, clean the windows, and change the outdoor light bulbs to a warm hue to brighten up the front porch, so that potential buyers know your home is well cared for, and worth their attention. The same goes for the backyard area; trim any overgrown hedges and grass, and keep things bright and inviting with some outdoor lighting, cheerful flowers, or even a dedicated seating area for entertaining.

Clean, declutter, and make your pending move easier from the start

No matter what type of market you’re listing your home in, cleaning, organizing, and decluttering your space is a surefire way to attract a greater number of potential buyers and higher offers. Spaces with carefully chosen furnishings, lots of light, and minimal clutter highlight a home’s square footage, storage potential, and overall appeal, inside and out. Remove personal touches such as family photos, memorabilia, and personal keepsakes to allow buyers to see what they’re investing in. Move items to an offsite storage area, schedule a garage sale, or put things up for sale on Craigslist, Kijiji, or Facebook Marketplace to make your home feel more spacious. Lastly, keep in mind that cleaning out and organizing your closets, cupboards, and storage spaces will make it easier to move into your new space!

Record Recent Repairs

Money spent may equal money earned! Upgrades like a new roof, furnace, central air, or hot water heater are all important to track, and will increase the potential sale price of your home. Some questions to answer as you document your home’s updates include:

• What was the cost? 

• When was the work done? 

• Who did the work?

These are also important questions that agents, buyers, and mortgage lenders will ask. Creating copies of receipts for installed upgrades or repairs will validate these costs to buyers. Placing this information in one handy spot (like a binder) can be a great idea, and will help to more efficiently promote your home when agents or buyers ask!