If you are thinking of listing your home for sale this spring, now is the perfect time to schedule your pre-sale consultation with Olive + Opal. Stephanie is the queen of pre-sale consultations and expertly guides homeowners in the right direction to get prepared. During the consultations, she spends an hour with the homeowner going through every inch of the house and developing an action plan to get the property in top shape for sale. Here are the top 5 areas that Steph recommends that homeowners focus their attention as they prepare to list:

address necessary Repairs

Knock out all those small repairs that have been piling up before you list. For instance, cabinets doors that don’t close correctly, faucets that drip, or cracks in bathroom tile. You may not notice these items on a daily basis, but obvious signs of wear and tear or needed repairs immediately turn off buyers. Instead of seeing a well-maintained home all they see is $$ and estimate how much they'll have to spend to make the space livable! Take that burden off the buyer so that the home appears "turn-key." Buyers will pay top dollar for the convenience of a move-in ready home.

perform low-cost Updates

The three most economical updates, biggest impact with least investment, are paint, fixtures and flooring. Paint color trends change regularly and the wrong color scheme can instantly makes a space feel dated, old, and not kept up. A fresh coat of paint can make a huge impact and we typically recommend that sellers stick with a light and neutral color palette. However, not all neutral colors work in every space, so it’s important to pay attention to the other surfaces in the home when selecting a wall color, including floor, trim and ceilings. Similarly, dated lighting and plumbing fixtures can instantly alert potential buyers to the age of a home or the time it was last renovated. There are some amazing and affordable light and plumbing fixtures that often can be switched by the homeowner or outsourced for a reasonable fee. Finally, certain floor materials can really age a property and even gross out buyers. Old dirty carpet not only looks unappealing, but can also contribute to an unpleasant odor in the home, so it’s worth the investment to replace the carpet or find an alternative solution. Yuck!

Clean all surfaces

Speaking of dirty carpet, nothing makes potential buyers lose interest quicker than a dirty house! A dirty home tells buyers that the current owner did not care for the property and even lends them to believe that there are other potential issues that have gone unaddressed. The simple solution is to present a sparkling clean home. Either invest your time, and some major elbow grease, to clean the home top to bottom - we’re talking ceiling fan blades and AC vents to baseboards and grout, or pay a professional cleaning team. Given the large number of to-do’s as your prepare for sale, we typically recommend that homeowners outsource cleaning to the professionals.

Pare down existing “stuff”

We get it, it's easy to accumulate a ton of stuff after years of living in the same home. In order to present your home at its best for potential buyers, you MUST start to declutter, pare down, and depersonalize so that the new owner can picture themselves living in the home. We recommend that you take away 75% of personal photos and decor and to remove at least 50% of clothes from closets to show the home has ample storage. An easy solution for clothing is to pack away any out-of-season items and put them (nicely) in storage or even in a rented pod. Donate any home goods, kid gear, old toys, and other items that you won’t be taking to the next property. It’s also important to pack up all personal items that are not used on a daily basis, including kitchen items, toiletries, and linens.

consider Furniture layout

Your home needs to present beautifully in photos, as well as show well in person, which means potentially shifting the current layouts of each space. The two key elements to keep in mind when arranging your furniture are visual openness and clear walking paths that are at least 30" wide. Visually open means that when you walk into a room no furniture or decor is blocking the view to the rest of the space. To create visual openness might mean rotating a living room 90 degrees so that the sofa is against a wall instead of in the middle of the room, or reorienting the bed in the main bedroom to a wall opposite the door. Walking paths are just as important as they ensure the space doesn’t feel cramped (read: bigger) and allows buyers to easily access the entire space during showings. If you’re unsure how to arrange your furniture, please reach out to us for a pre-sale consultation and we’ll show you the best way to set up your home to highlight the key features and make it universally appealing to buyers.

There is no time like the present to get a jump start on preparing your house for the spring market. If you follow pay close attention to Steph’s areas of focus, you’ll be in great shape. And if you need a little more guidance, reach out to us to schedule a pre-sale consultation. We can provide you with very specific outline to prioritize your pre-listing efforts.