Spring-cleaning your chances of selling success involve more than taking down Christmas decorations (you have done that, right?). Here are some ways to return to the market in full force to sell this spring:
Spruce up your home – Go through every room with a box to put away anything that you know you won’t need again until you are in your new home. This includes personal items, clothes that you won’t need until next season, or toys or other items that clutter up rooms in your home. Repair or replace any seriously damaged appliances in your home, but remember that now is not the time to update or renovate. Simply do a thorough spring-cleaning of your home and yard to transition it back to its ready-to-sell glory. Add some color in your home or yard by adding potted plants or bouquets of flowers to make your home even more inviting.
Freshen up your photos and listing – It is pretty likely that features of your home might look different now than when they did when you had your first pictures taken. So now is the time to review your old photos and take new ones of rooms or features of your home that have been repaired, rearranged, or that might just look different today. There is no need to replace every single one of your photos with a new one, but maybe you should take a photo of the outside of your home as it looks today, or take a photo of the master bedroom with different lighting. Try rearranging a certain room to show it off in a new way. Another good thing to do is re-word your listing description. Talk about the different features of your home that can really be appreciated and use refreshing verbiage to entice buyers to see your home for themselves.
Get everything in order – During the holiday season, you probably took your home off the market because you knew there would be so many other things going on that you wouldn’t be able to keep up with the process of selling your home. Well, now there are no distractions. It’s time to make sure everything is in order. Get all of your paperwork together and organized and confirm that everything is ready to go to be re-listed.
Rhonda Duffy is a real estate expert and consumer advocate.
