Selling a Property: Ways to Prepare Your Home For Open House

Preparing your home for the open house is important if you want to get the best value for your property. Whether you are selling it through conventional channels or in an auction, there are important things you need to do first. After all, when putting up a property for sale, you need to create a great first impression. It is impossible to recover or make a do-over if you fail to do so.

1. Start from the outside. You will be surprised at how prospective buyers skip houses and continue driving if they do not like how a house that is on sale looks like from the outside. Research has shown that landscaping that follows a coherent theme can increase property value significantly. It can add appeal and thousands of dollars on your home's market value. Take out your work gloves one last time and cut, remove or weed out your yard clutter. Trim bushes, mow your lawn, place your beautifully potted flowers on your porch and paint fences or gates to hide those rusted patches. 
2. Aim for the ‘model home’ look. Once you are finished making your home look its best from the outside, it is now time to make improvements on the inside. The ‘model home’ look does not necessarily mean you need to make expensive remodeling work. Practical decorating techniques are enough. It is essential to make the interiors look neutral. Walls colored in beige or any nude shade can help your prospective buyers imagine what they can possibly do with your space should they proceed to purchase your home. The model home look is impersonal so take out whatever personal accents you may have and replace it with something more general. Take out family portraits hung on walls with landscape paintings or mirrors instead. Invest time to clean out the rooms. Declutter and eliminate items in your house that can look like eyesores. Paint the walls, doors and windows if necessary and use neutral shades if you are doing so. Install recessed lighting so you can layer the lighting that flows inside the room. You will be surprised at how lighting can make a difference in your home's sale-ability. Keep furniture elements and accessories at a minimum. Overdoing it may work the other way around. 
3. Add necessary details in the sections of the home. Be clutter-free as possible when preparing every section of your house for sale and the open house. Take out any element that brings out too much of your personality as you would want your prospects to envision themselves living in your space. Keep bedrooms, bathrooms, the living room, the kitchen, the basement and the garage as clean and organised as possible. If there are furniture that needs to be left behind, evaluate whether it makes that part of the room smaller. Also, items in your home that seems to be a bit off should be taken out temporarily. Consider renting a temporary storage unit. Make sure to replace burned out lights. Clean ceilings, walls and windows. Replace door knobs if these are worn out already and bathroom tiles if these are cracked or broken.

Again, when preparing your home for a sale and for the open house, be sensible with the improvements you will be doing. Do not spend too much on improvements as there are certainly a lot of ways to make your home sale-ready without breaking the bank. It is in the tiny details that can make your home truly ready for the big day.