The Top 3 Ways to Prep Your Home to Sell in a Competitive Market

In today’s competitive market where the number of first-time homebuyers, alone, increased from 31% to 34% between 2020 and 2021, it’s not a bad idea to become a seller. Even with the market on your side, there are important steps to take when looking to maximize the profits from your sale. If you want to be as prepared as possible to sell your home, keep reading for some practical projects and helpful tips.

1. Use Trends to Your Advantage

While every buyer is unique and looking for a place they can eventually make their own, there is still a common consensus surrounding how your home should look when listed. It’s important to give your prospective buyers a blank slate. Take advantage of natural light and move (or remove) furniture, decor, or other items that could hinder its presence throughout the space. Be sure that any lamps you own have correlating color temperatures to avoid the eyesore of mixing warm and cool-tone bulbs.

With trend exploration, you can play with your space and even experiment with neutrals that you might want in your new house. Walls should get a fresh coat of paint, common areas like the living room need to have their square-footage maximized, and everything needs to be decluttered and depersonalized before staging can occur.

This is also an important time to finish or refresh any projects that you may have begun in the house that went incomplete or forgotten in the busyness of life. Common culprits might include semi-finished basements, drywall repair, and landscaping upkeep. Not all buyers want to purchase a project, especially those that are necessary towards things like passing a home inspection.

2. Work With What You Already Have

Bigger isn’t always better when prepping your home, so it’s best to avoid larger remodels if you can. Chances are that major renovations won’t have a significant ROI when selling. Financially, you’d be better off giving everything a good clean, removing cobwebs from corners, and refreshing things at a surface level. Highlight storage areas and unique nooks as practical spaces that won’t interrupt the more functional aspects of your home.

Having a home warranty in place to protect your major systems and appliances during this process is not only a smart coverage option, but can also be used as a selling point for prospective buyers. Home warranties can usually be transferred directly to the new owners, saving them the hassle of securing and maintaining those items after closing.

Lastly, when working with what you have, it’s important to take advantage of your yard space. Garden projects should be clean, simple, and easy to maintain, and you’ll want to take advantage of any room there might be for things like a bonfire pit or private outdoor seating. Giving buyers a full taste of the home’s potential means that you’ve gone the extra mile to let them actually experience it.

3. Consider the Neighborhood

One of the most underrated methods of maximizing the sale of your home is by looking at your neighborhood’s bigger picture. Obviously you don’t have control over what kind of neighborhood you’re selling in in terms of safety, walkability, and general accessibility, but you can keep up with the curb appeal. Consider the best of your neighborhood’s simple gardens, architectural features, or recent updates as things you could apply to the house you’re selling. If you happen to live in a Renaissance neighborhood, you might be eligible to receive funds towards the upkeep or restoration of the home’s original features.

Ask yourself whether you want to have a fresh look on the street, or if you need to catch up to other homes that have already been updated (possibly for sale). Consider having your property appraised to determine a reasonable selling price for the house. Remember that this is a seller’s market, so if your house fits the bill, you’ll be receiving several competitive offers.