If you’re looking to sell your home, you have to be prepared to put in the prep work needed to make your home more attractive than all other competing properties in your area. The biggest responsibility you’ll have as a homeowner is ensuring the property is incredibly clean, comfortable, and ready for potential buyers to move in. If you’ve never taken on this huge task, however, it can feel overwhelming. To ease your mind, and to ensure you can get the job done quickly, here are nine intelligent cleaning steps you should follow to prepare your home to sell:
1. Always Start with a List
If you want to stay on task during a cleaning operation, you must start with a list of tasks that need to be done. In addition to making a list, you should write down how long each task is expected to take. As you cross off items, and progress in your journey, you’ll feel much more motivated, and feel clear-headed about how much more time your cleaning operation will take to complete.
2. Bedrooms Need to Look Liveable
Nothing can make an otherwise clean home feel less comfortable and attractive to potential buyers than a messy, unkempt bedroom. You want the buyer to easily imagine how they would decorate a space, so make sure the bedroom is not too crowded. Additionally, make sure to remove any potential urine smells or stains from the bedroom furniture if you have pets before showing the home.
3. Make Your Windows Sparkle
Making the view from inside a home feel charming and cozy is key to selling a potential buyer on a property. If your windows are sparkling, the beautiful outdoor views it provides will feel that much more attractive. Make sure to keep your windows at least slightly cracked as well, as pleasant outdoor scents can add an extra layer of personality and attraction to a piece of real estate.
4. Check for Mold
Few issues can ruin an otherwise-done real estate deal like stumbling upon mold. Even if you had no idea that the mold was there, buyers are likely to believe that you were trying to hide it from them, and this built-up suspicion could scare them away from pulling the trigger on a property. Consider hiring a home inspector to look for mold throughout your property before putting the house on the market, and you can rest easy that this nightmare scenario will not enter your waking world.
5. Trust Your Nose
When you’re cleaning, your nose will be one of your most important tools (so make sure to trust it)! Even if a space otherwise looks sparkling clean, it’s possible that unseen issues could be creating an unpleasant scent. As we’ve mentioned above, pleasant scents greatly boost your ability to sell a property, so let your nose guide you to any smell-based maintenance your home may need.
6. Carpets are Key
Always make sure you put extra effort into cleaning your carpets before putting your home on the market. Because you’ve been living in the space, it can be easy to underestimate how dirty (or even smelly) a section of carpet truly is. To avoid this problem popping up, do a full deep clean of all of your home’s carpets.
7. Clutter is Your Enemy
Before you begin cleaning your home, getting rid of clutter is important. Doing so will make it easier to clean, and will help you avoid repeat cleaning tasks. As you begin to show your home to potential buyers, a lack of clutter will prove invaluable as well, as it will allow them to imagine what they want to do with the space after buying it.
8. Start Small
Trying to take on the major cleaning tasks right out of the gate can be exhausting. By getting the small tasks done first, you’ll feel more accomplished, and this will help energize you to take on the bigger tasks. If you know that these larger tasks are the last ones you’ll have to tackle, you’ll feel more dedicated to completing them in a single day.
9. Put an Emphasis on Walkability
Avoiding clutter will help you keep your property easy to walk through. The easier it is for the potential buyer to get into nooks and crannies, the easier it will be for them to imagine whether the space meets their requirements. Additionally, this will help your cleaning tasks become much simpler and easier to execute as well.
Don’t Be Afraid to Hire Help
It’s easy to assume that you can handle deep cleaning and real estate market prep all by yourself. Doing so can make it easy for you to overlook major cleaning needs, however, so never be afraid to hire some extra help to get the job done. By hiring a professional to help you finalize the look and cleanliness of your home before putting it on the market, you’ll have a much easier time finding a buyer.
Referral: If you are in the Arlington VA area, contact our friends at Think Maids, arlington va. They are fun and outgoing and has a no dust allowed mentality.
