Low Cost Ways To Prepare Your House For Sale

Buying a house is perhaps the biggest transaction you will ever make. According to
a recent survey in the United Kingdom, however, the average homebuyer chooses
their house in just 21 minutes! Clearly, you want your house to stand out from the
crowd. The good news is that you can do numerous things to put your house’s “best
foot forward” for low cost or, better yet, no cost beyond your time and effort.

Today, Daniela Baker from CreditDonkey, an online credit card applications website,
offers low cost ways to prepare your house for sale.

What is low cost? Only you can answer this question, and you probably ought to
make sure your spouse agrees with your answer. Once you have decided how much
money you can spend, don’t forget to figure out how much time you can spend as
well. Given infinite time and money, anyone could make your house the jewel of the
neighborhood. If you don’t have infinite time or money, try these ideas on for size:

Clean your yard. Realtors stress (and you’ve probably heard the phrase) “curb
appeal”. The exterior of your house sets the tone for the entire visit. If your grass
needs to be cut or if your bushes call to mind a jungle safari, your home isn’t going
to be very appealing to the average buyer. Likewise, those dead flowers you’ve been
meaning to get around to replacing and the weeds that now have their own zip code
send a clear message of neglect.

You don’t need to make it look like you live on a golf course, nor do you have to
invest a lot of money in a landscape service. A bit of time with the lawnmower,
some sturdy gloves, and maybe a flat or two of inexpensive annuals from your local
nursery or home center will do wonders for your house’s curb appeal, and will make
sure buyers walk in with a good first impression.

Clean your house. This ought to be an obvious thought, but many people neglect
it. Before we bought our house last summer, we looked at over 25 homes. About
half of these had not been cleaned since roughly the Ford Administration, and of
those about a third might have needed a good wash before they could have been
condemned. You can imagine which houses were immediately crossed off our list!

Look at it this way: how did you meet your spouse? Did you shower, put on clean
clothes, and style you hair to best advantage? Do your house the same favor. The
idea is less to make the house ready for a white-glove inspection but more to let the
features of the house avoid being overshadowed by dirt and grime. Cleaning your
house costs only time, but it puts your house’s best foot forward.

Perform minor repairs. You know that to open your screen door you have to turn
and lift. You have done it so many times it’s second nature to you. Now that you’re
trying to sell your house, however, it’s probably time to get things like that fixed.
Where you see a minor inconvenience, potential buyers see a “to do” list already
building in their minds. Fix the obvious little problems and their focus will be on
how your house might become their home.

Ultimately, buyers are looking at your house because they have decided they might
want to buy it. They like the location, you have the amenities they’re looking for
– for whatever reason your house is already on their list of possible purchases.
Your job in selling your house is to present it in the best possible way. Don’t let
something that is easily and inexpensively fixed give buyers a reason to cross your
house off their list – you can always use a 0% apr credit card to help the temporary
shortfall. Using these low cost tips, you can make sure the impression your house
leaves on potential buyers is the best it can be.