-
How To Prepare For A Showing/Open House
Last week, I shared How We Sold Our Home In One Day and I promised to also share How To Prepare For A Showing/Open House. As a former real estate professional, I have a few ideas on what buyers like and also the things that can have them running for the door before they even get through the foyer. Even though there are tons of infographics and lists out there on the internet, these are definitely things you want to focus on if you are trying to get ready for a showing.
Brighten
Buyers love a home with good lighting! (O.K., there may be some who enjoy the dungeon look, but they are few and far between.) Open up those curtains and blinds, clean the windows, add lamps if necessary and turn on all lighting. Adding mirrors to a room will also help reflect light and make the room appear more open.
Tidy up/Fluff
Pick up and put away anything that is out of place. Make the beds. Wipe down counter tops and appliances. Put out the good towels. Make sure that sinks/mirrors/toilets are sparkling clean. Close the toilet lids. Fluff pillows and add some pretty flowers in a vase. Vacuum/Sweep the floors. Take out the trash. Definitely, clean up any pet messes/areas.
Kitchens and bathrooms sell homes, so make them shine, like the sink from our powder room.
Adjust Temperature
Make sure the temperature of your home is set to a comfortable level for the season. If you are selling in the heat of summer, a buyer will appreciate walking into a home cooled with air conditioning, plus it will show that the mechanicals are working properly. The same applies to the winter with a furnace.
House Scents/Smells
Every home has its own scent. Some homes smell stronger than others, but no one wants their home to be stinky. When preparing for a showing, be careful not to use strong scents from room sprays and candles. These scents can lead buyers to believe you are trying to cover something up. Plus, many people are allergic to them. If you must use something, my advice is to keep it simple. Use natural scents, such as those of citrus, vanilla, basil, or cinnamon. And remember the best smelling home is a clean home.
I hope that these tips can help you if you are trying to sell your home. Keeping these things in mind will help you to better prepare for a showing/open house and hopefully get your home sold fast!
-
Tween Bedroom Before
Woohoo! I am so thrilled to be participating in the One Room Challenge this fall and I’m happy to announce I will be making over my daughter’s room! I have wanted to join the ORC in the past, but the timing never seemed right. However, now that we have the entire Country House to makeover, I have plenty of spaces to work on. By the way, if you are new to Elizabeth Joan Designs, WELCOME! I’m Erin, the decor lovin’ girl behind the blog.
The One Room Challenge (ORC) is a semi-annual event hosted by Calling It Home. Twenty amazing designers are featured and have just 6 weeks to makeover a room. In addition, anyone with a blog (i.e. little ol’ design/DIY bloggers like me) can link up their own transformations. There will be tons of inspiration and beautiful spaces to check out, so stick around!
Since we’ve moved into our quaint little home in the country, we’ve primarily focused on simple curb appeal type updates. But now it is time to get working on the interiors of this place. One of our first priorities is to get our kids’ rooms overhauled and since our daughter is the oldest, she gets first dibs.
In our City House, both our daughter (11) and son (5) opted to share a bedroom so that they could also have a playroom. It was fun trying to figure out how to combine both kids’ styles to create a cohesive shared space.
Let’s check out where I will be starting at in my daughter’s new bedroom…
EEK!
There is so much to do in here! As you can see, the carpet is really bad and this room definitely needs paint. All of the furniture in the room was just kind of thrown in when we moved, since most of stuff from the kids’ shared bedroom is now residing in our little guy’s room. So, that means that this room is getting a complete overhaul. It will definitely be a lot of work, but I’m sure that our daughter will love the final result.
If you love seeing a room transformed, then you should definitely check back next week to see our plans for this space!
-
Curb Appeal Update
I can’t wait to share my simple curb appeal update with you guys today! I’m a huge believer that little changes, like painting, can make a big difference in how spaces look. It only takes a little bit of time to have a huge impact. Check it out!
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Click here for my full disclosure policy.
As I’ve mentioned before, our Country House is nothing amazingly special. It’s comfy and cozy and works for our general needs, but typically I would not have thought about purchasing a small yellow ranch home. (Read all about our decision to buy this house by clicking here.)
The Shutters
The outside of our home was very plain, with light yellow siding and chippy white shutters. (Nevermind the ugly bushes; those will be replaced in due time.) After we updated our garage doors to give them a little more pizazz, I knew that there were still a few simple changes that we could do with paint. So, we brainstormed for a bit and decided to paint our shutters. After removing all of the shutters, we gave them a couple of coats each of Krylon Black Satin paint.
Once they had dried, we power washed the siding and hung them back up.
Doesn’t the black just make them pop? We love it!
The Front Door
Since the shutters looked so much better after such an easy fix, we decided that our front door also needed a change.
First, we opted to permanently remove the storm door. Unfortunately, the old door was a dingy gray color and certainly didn’t look welcoming at all.
Next, we painted our front door with Valspar’s Kettle Black (semi-gloss). Just covering up the gray and cream made such a huge impact.
Of course, I had to add a few extra accessories, like the cute “Home Sweet Home” rug and some seasonal flowers in a vintage crock.
Just look at that before and after! Painting truly makes such a difference.
We can’t wait to do more updates to the curb appeal of our home, but for now, that will have to wait, since we are getting started on the inside this weekend. Yay! What do you think of our curb appeal update? We absolutely love the black, but would you have chosen a different color for the shutters or the door? We would love to hear from you! To see more updates and sneak peeks, follow me on Instagram!
-
How We Sold Our Home In One Day
It has been a little over three months since we closed on The City House and I want to share with you the secrets of how we sold it to the first buyer who walked through (on the first day). Obviously, the title of this post “How We Sold Our Home In One Day” may be a little deceptive. There is a lot more involved in selling a home than just finding a buyer. You must do all of the prep work before listing (we used a realtor), plus getting to closing can take a couple of months or more, depending on negotiations, inspections, loan approvals, etc. However, getting started on the right path can ensure that you get the perfect buyer into your home as soon as possible.
As a former realtor, I think one of the most important parts of finding a buyer quickly is making your home look as appealing as possible before listing. (Picking a reasonable listing price and deciding how willing you are to negotiate will also be very important.) Here are some tricks and tips on how to do it!
Fix
This should be apparent, but fixing the big and small problems in the house (i.e. small holes in the wall, doors that don’t latch correctly, lighting problems, landscaping issues) should be one of the first things on your to-do list, once you decide to sell your home. Take care of all of the problems you know of and you won’t have to worry about them showing up on later inspections.
Our kitchen counters were looking pretty bad after a failed DIY attempt. So, we replaced them with an inexpensive, yet, nice looking option.
Curb Appeal
Buyers will definitely have an opinion about your home before they even walk in. Curb appeal is important since it is the first thing that people see. Make sure to tidy up outside by cleaning walkways, cutting the grass, weeding flower beds. You can even add some potted plants and a seasonal door wreath to pretty things up.
My favorite boxwood wreath hanging on the front door.
Declutter
Many people don’t realize that cleaning and decluttering are two different things. With decluttering, the point is to remove all of the things that make the rooms look, well, cluttered and busy. Removing mail, tchotchkes, and excess furniture from each room will help the space feel more inviting and open. Decide whether each item you are decluttering should be thrown out, donated, or stored until you move.
We didn’t have a lot of items to purge, but we did move a lot of extra stuff to our Country House and donated quite a few things. If you don’t have space to store items in your home and your budget allows, consider renting a storage unit until you move. You could also ask friends/family if they would mind allowing you to store a few things in their homes until your home is sold.
Our dining table was pretty big for our breakfast nook, so we swapped it out for a smaller one to make the room look a little more spacious.
Clean
Again, this should go without saying, but your home should be pretty much spotless. We opted to hire a cleaning company to come in and really deep clean everything. Getting the major cleaning out of the way, saved us so much time and helped us focus on other tasks, like painting the walls.
We were also lucky enough to be able to move our pets to our new Country House before listing. We knew that then they wouldn’t get in the way with showings and it would be one less thing to worry about cleaning up. Pet odors can be a huge turn off for potential buyers! If you must have your pets around during showings, consider crating/kenneling them. Also, make sure their areas (food bowls/litter boxes/etc.) are pristine. Don’t forget to clean rugs and vacuum furniture well to get rid of smells, hair, and dander.
Our kitty Rowan, lounging like he does.
Stage
For many people, hiring a home stager is not in the budget when they are trying to sell their house. The good news is that you could do a pretty good job at staging your own home. As I mentioned before, decluttering will really help open rooms up to feel more spacious. A few other ideas to consider would be:
- Room Rearrangements – Move furniture around to be more inviting for conversation, especially in the living/family room. Also, make sure that each room has furniture in it to compliment the exact type of room a buyer may want. If you have 3 bedrooms, but use one as an office or playroom, consider changing it to make it look more like to a bedroom while your home is listed. Also, make sure that large furniture pieces are not in front of windows which may stop natural light from coming in.
- Neutralize – There are a couple of ways to neutralize your home. First, consider painting rooms with bold color choices a more neutral tone (i.e. changing bright yellow to soft greige.) Second, think about storing some personal items, such as family photos, toys, and collections. You don’t have to necessarily rid your home of every last one of these items, but a buyer will be less distracted if a home is neutralized and it will be easier for them to picture themselves living in the space.
Neutral colors and welcoming furniture placement from our living room.
Good luck!
So, those were the major things we did that we believed to helped us sell our home so quickly. Even though I can’t guarantee your home will be sold in one day, I hope that you can use these tips and tricks to get your home sold as quickly as possible! Selling your home can be so nerve-racking. It is even ranked up there as one of the most stressful life events a person can experience. To say that I’m happy to be done with the selling process, would be an understatement. However, I’m glad that we spent a little extra time preparing our home before listing because it certainly paid off! Best of luck to you too!
Click here to see how we prepared for showings!