BC Sunshine Coast real estate by Menno at Royal lePage Real estate on the BC Sunshine Coast

How do you sell a house for “top Dollar”? Here’s your detailed to-do list to help you maximise the salability and value of your property. There’s only so much YOU can do but really, you should definitely do THAT.

It's not terribly complicated to make your house look its very best but it does take quite a bit of effort. Here are some basic tips to make things easier on you and your family.

When you’ve decided to sell the house, you have to get it ready for the market. That means you need to de-clutter, repair, clean, revitalize so your house looks fabulous. How do you keep it that way while you’re trying to sell it? Let’s try to set a schedule and solve the challenge of keeping the house in prime shape. You want to prevent the house from drifting back to its pre-sale state after all your hard work.

Reduce the amount of maintenance while the house is on the market by declaring some rooms off-limit from everyday use. For example, do you have three or four bathrooms in your house? Pick two that you can use and close the doors on the rest. Perhaps you have a family room and a living room, use one only and bar the other. Then of course there’s the dining room and the kitchen. Maybe eat in the kitchen from now on leaving the dining room untouched. The untouched rooms are “ready for showings” at all times, other than perhaps the occasional dusting.

No panic, just a bit of regular organising. You can constantly be ahead of last-minute stresses when you stick to a cleaning, organising and maintenance schedule.

THE LIST FOR WEEKLY CHORES

Be prepared to spend a few hours each week maintaining your house while you’re selling it. If you stagger the tasks throughout the week, there’s hardly anything to it. That way your house is never at its worst shape on the Friday before the weekend showing. Always share the workload.

-          Maintain the landscape by mowing the lawn, trimming shrubs and plants. Sweep walkways, driveway, porch and decks.

-          Wash windows, dust furniture, sweep, vacuum and mop the floors, clean the shower and tub areas.

-          Replenish indoor flowers and maintain outdoor planters.

-          Pay your bills and put the paperwork out of sight.

When your house is on the market, it almost seems like you have a revolving door with people always coming and going. You have to always be prepared for showings.

The trick is to keep your daily chores list as short as possible, unless you like getting up extra early to work around the house for an extended period of time.

THE LIST FOR DAILY CHORES

Before leaving the house (even if there’s no showing booked), make sure that all clutter is put away (maybe in boxes or bins). That way, an unexpected showing does not need to create a crisis. Your daily activities should include the following:

-          Make the beds. Launder frequently and put dirty clothes away or in the machine.

-          File incoming mail – do not pile it. Dispose of yesterday’s newspaper.

-          Wash the dishes, discard food left-overs or store in fridge, wipe faucets, remove fingerprints from mirrors, windows, walls, clean toilet.

When it’s show time, we mean business. The buyers are coming! Everything has to be as perfect as possible. It may help to have a last-minute checklist.

If you manage to stick to your weekly and daily chore lists, then your pre-showing list will be very small, possibly even negligible. How's that for stress-avoidance?

A SHORT PRE-SHOWING LIST

If you get a sudden request for a showing, you should be okay with the weekly and daily checklists. If you have the time and opportunity to spiffy things up even more, here are some simple ideas on how to one-up yourself in about ten minutes flat:

-          Pick up any last minute clutter inside and outside. Again, de-clutter the kitchen, put away kitchen gadgets and small appliances. While the sink should be empty, you can pile stuff into the dishwasher. Make sure no drawers are left ajar.

-          Put away personal valuable. Turn off the computer.

-          Straighten chairs and tables, open some windows (weather permitting). Open the window blinds.

-          Wipe dry the shower and tub. Draw back the shower curtain so buyers don’t have to peek. Toilet lids must be down.

-          Light fireplace (if gas and when weather appropriate), turn on lights in dark corners not in already bright rooms (looks stupid). Turn off the TV. Soft music is optional (jury is still out on that). Remove anything stinky (green bin, garbage, dirty laundry).

-          Close the garage door and remove cars to another location if at all possible.

Since you love your dog, cat, ferret, lizard or whatever, it's almost inconceivable that there are people out there who detest pets, their smells or allergens.

PET OWNERS – SPECIAL CARE REQUIRED

It sounds horrible but pets are not conducive to a good real estate viewing (generally speaking). Pets distract in many different ways.

-          Pets smell and more and more people have pet allergies; we want to avoid them from running out of your house either in disgust or sneezing heavily. A strict cleaning regime will take care of most of the “problem”.

-          Some buyers are afraid of cats, dogs, reptiles, rodents, etc. It’s best to not have any animals around during showings; the distraction is good for nothing and people’s fear or aversion can only get in the way.

-          Some buyers find animal noises irritating: birds and dogs can indeed be quite noisy and distracting, even when caged or in a kennel.

The long and short of it remains that you’re best off to remove all animals and all signs of animal life in the house. That would include doggy baskets, food dishes, cages, litter boxes and whatever else people would find objectionable.

Let’s hope that the buyers will fall in love with your home and make a good offer. If not, you’ll at least have a nice, clean and organised house to come home to.

This comes as no surprise to those that normally lead a highly organised life: most things go more smoothly when you don't have to resort to last-minute stress situations.

IN SUMMARY:

Your house will look like a museum, of sorts, when the buyers arrive. It should have that not-lived-in look that’s slightly impersonal but not totally sterile. Warm and inviting but not too embracing.

The most important thing that you already know, I assume, is that all residents must be away from the property during all showings. There is no benefit to hanging around just “to answer questions” or whatever your best intentions might be. You should also not be hovering anywhere near the property “until they leave”.

Apart from keeping your house in top viewing condition, there are many other things that need to be done to bring the property to market – but you can (and should) delegate that to your agent.

Selling a home does not mean you need to re-invent the wheel. We have fairly standard recommendations available to you that should make your life a lot easier.

MORE reading material about selling your home is available in the following blog articles:

A Sunshine Coast real estate market sale path: http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php/the-logistics

A bit more about the real estate market: http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php/market-when-to-change

Ask your real estate agent: http://www.menno.ca/?p=19684

Open house benefits, why and when? http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php/open-house-quiz

Some more real estate market knowledge? http://www.menno.ca/?p=19820

Sell a house but at what price: http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php/list-price-difference