Top Ten List in preparing your ski home for sale, Steamboat Springs, Colorado
In today’s market, with so much inventory and selection to choose from, it’s important to make your home shine and have all the tricks up your sleeve if you want to make that first impression. Here is a sampling of the blood, sweat and tears you’ll have to keep in mind before you have that broker’s tour of real estate agents who are more brutally critical of your castle than your father was on your first date:
1. Before you put your house on the market, even if you think it is in pristine condition, contact a real-estate agent to walk through it. The agent may have suggestions for repairs or small improvements that could help you sell your house. Make sure they are licensed, insured, and have credibility behind them.
2. Maintain your lawn, garden, and shrubs. If it is during ski season, make sure you hire a person who snow plows that you can trust. They must do the driveways, walkways, and be prepared to get to your home after a major snowstorm. If people come to your home and they have to forge a path to the doorstep, they’ll just keep driving past. In the warmer months, keep the lawn watered and plant some flowers.
3. Take photos. If you have a beautiful perennial garden or an herb garden that keeps coming back each spring, shoot up a roll of film and put the pictures in an album for prospective buyers to look at. In the winter, people may have a hard time visualizing what the yard and garden will look like during the growing season. If you have a party and you have plenty of space for company, take pictures of what that looks like. Take pictures of the surrounding parks during different seasons, like skate skiing trails or sledding hills with kids on them.
4. Touch up the exterior paint if it’s starting to flake or peel. You may not have to repaint the whole house, but you never know when a realtor will show your home, and certain times of the day the sun shines brightly on the weak spots on the home. Remove all clutter on the decks and balconies , and toss old tired plants and call in the bug inspector if you have any wasp nests or earwigs floating around. Aside from being really gross, people fixate on those things and they can’t focus on anything else once they’re exposed to the critters.
5. Clean and leave sparse. Have the chimney for both the furnace and the fireplace checked and cleaned. The biggest thing here is the dark, black stain that occurs on the rock walls of fireplaces from natural wood fires. You can get some good elbow grease and some bleach to clean up the exterior – just don’t get it on the carpet. Remove all the clutter and all the personal pictures on the mantel. Get one large knick knack like a deer or a friendly bear , perhaps a beautiful candle and a nice mirror and that’s all you need up there. Don’t think that buyers won’t open your doors – including refrigerators, cabinets, dressers, closets, and under the kitchen sink. Rearrange, buy some baskets to organize goods, throw out old containers and food items, clean shelves and allow for plenty of room in each area so the buyers can see how much storage you have.
6. Evaluate what your house looks like as you step in through the door. Does it look crowded or cluttered? Does it look like nobody lives there? Can people see past the “you” in the room and see the room itself? How about the closets? I always tell my clients to “pretend that you are moving – today”. Put everything in boxes, label them, and get them into storage. You’re selling your house, right? Only use the clothes you’ll need for the season, and pack, pack, pack! I used to travel extensively, and I always stayed at the 4 Seasons, Hyatt or the Ritz Carlton. When I go into a home if it reminds me of the Ritz Carlton, with no residue of anyone else around the room, then I’m sold! And I can sleep soundly. Of course, not everyone’s home looks like the Ritz, and the furniture doesn’t have to be Ritz quality, but if a buyer walks into someone’s castle and it’s sparse, with no dirt or grime or anything that gives them the heeby- jeebies, including dog bowls, cat boxes, or pet snakes, they can absorb the qualities of the home and picture themselves there. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got my own fido and felix, but in selling your home it’s important to find a way to see the home through the buyer’s eyes and make sure everything is surgically sterile.
7. Make it fresh. Have the carpets and draperies professionally cleaned. Oil your natural wood doors and cabinets – make them shiny. Change light bulbs to reflect the brightest light possible, within the acceptable standards. You’ll make the rooms look bigger and brighter.
8. Make small fixes: touch up interior paint, or install new panels on the electrical switches. Fix drippy faucets, and update the knobs and handles on the kitchen cabinets. If a room really needs it, give it a new coat of paint in a neutral color. Have broken or cracked windows repaired or replaced. Wash the windows inside and out. Take down old outdated framed pictures, and remove most, if not all your personal photos. Buyers will walk into your home and they can glean information from your photos – information that may sometimes work against you in your negotiations in receiving an offer on the home. Not only that, but they walk immediately to the “wall of family photos” and spend too much time trying to figure out who Auntie May is, and why she is standing next to that guy…and that guys looks familiar…and before you know it, they know the Sellers! It can work for or against a Seller – and it’s better not to take the risk.
9. Clean the mildew out of your shower and touch up the grout. Any wet areas needing updating are an absolute crime when buyers evaluate how much they can chip away at the price when it comes to an offer. A loose facial hair, soap on the counters – toothpaste in the sink, you name it! Keep a supply of rags, paper towels, and spray cleaning solution under the sinks in the bathrooms or kitchen for those last-minute calls you get from a broker wanting a showing in the next 45 minutes. It helps to line up a professional cleaning service to come in while your house is on the market so you are always ready for short-notice calls seeking to set up viewings.
10. Put away your valuables! I am surprised by Sellers who leave in a hurry, coffee pot on, doggie left home alone, and jewelry left on the dresser in plain sight waiting to get lifted. And, most Sellers don’t remember where they put that special pin until months later, because many times their lives are upside down always making sure the house is spic and span every moment of every day. It gets very tiring…especially with kids. So make out a checklist, review it before showings and when leaving the house, and you’re sure to make that “first impression” when buyers walk through the door looking for their own castle to call home.
click here to find out more details on how to list your home in the most professional manner possible, and to review what a listing agreement looks like and what to ask for in trying to sell your home.
findlaw.com contributed to this Top Ten List
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