The purpose of showing your home is to hook a buyer. You want the buyers to come through your house and be impressed - so impressed that they're ready to make an offer. You'll have one chance of making a great first impression on the potential buyers, so make sure to follow these five helpful tips that really make it count.
02 May 2022
Focus on the outside. Make sure you don’t neglect the outside of your home. Curb appeal can make or break the odds of someone even bothering to get out of the car to come in. If they pull up and see a home with a lawn that obviously needs edging and unkept flowerbed, they’re going to wonder what else hasn’t been cared for in the property. You want the outside of your home to be spotless – clean the siding, the windows, and the doors. Make sure there’s no dirt, smudges, no cobwebs, and anything that needs painting has been spiffed up.
Take yourself out of the house. That means that you want to take out all the personal stuff, remove the family photos from the walls or tables. You want the home to look neutral so that potential buyers can look at your house and picture themselves living there. Everything should be as neutral as possible in terms of personal items.
Remove all the extra clutter you see at first glance. If you look around, it’ll amaze you how much stuff you’ve accumulated over the years. Some of it might be very well important, but that doesn’t mean that your potential buyers should see it. When you have a lot of clutter, it shrinks the living space of the house and makes it look and feel cramped and smaller. Many homeowners get something called house blindness. They’ve lived in the home for so long with the same clutter, they don’t really see it anymore, but a stranger will always notice. So, clean out your house and make the space as big as possible.
If you have a pet, no one that walks through your house should be able to notice it exists. That means no cat litter box, no dog to jump on anyone and no food sitting around in a dish. Your home should be free of pet odors. You don’t want to lose a possible deal just because they can smell your pet’s presence, or your pet makes a bad impression.
Stage your home. You can hire a professional or you can do it yourself. Stage your living areas in a way that shows off your home. These days you can rent furniture to make your home furnishings look good and that’s no trouble at all. Someone who knows how to stage your home plays up the best features of the home and knows what to bring in or get rid of, to make the entire house appeal to a buyer.
First impressions are huge when showing your home to potential buyers, but by following the simple tips I’ve mentioned, you’ll be well on the way to making a great impression and hopefully receiving multiple offers. If you are at all anxious about this important step, just reach out to one of our trusted real estate agents who can guide you through the process.