As you know, sometimes the most minor factors make a difference. The same is true when it comes to selling your home. By investing a little time and a minimal amount of money, you can greatly enhance the marketability of your home. I have five suggestions for changes you can make that will increase your home’s value.
Remove personal items
As painful as it may be, in order to attract the most offers and to demand a premium for your home, you should remove personal items from the most visible areas of the home. You cherish your family photographs, trophies, and other memorabilia, but potential buyers will have little connection to these items. The key to selling is having a buyer build an emotional connection to your home. You want the buyers to feel like this home can be their own from the day they walk in the door.
Removing personal items is an easy change that doesn’t cost anything but that will earn you a higher offer. As an added benefit, it will make your home seem cleaner and more open, allowing the buyers to picture how they can add their own personal touches to each room.
Think about what may be too specific
I have sold some of the finest properties in the Beverly Hills area, and many of the owners that I have dealt with have been brilliantly artistic people with magnificently unique homes. But because not everyone has the same tastes or styles, it is important to consider which of your homes features may be wonderful, yet too specific to you.
A few weeks before your first open house, look around the house and try to take an objective view of what rooms may require personal tastes to like. Invite a few friends or neighbors to come by to lend you an honest outsider’s opinion.
Consider painting rooms that are done in non-neutral colors (bright colors like candy-apple red or bright yellow, etc) or rooms that are wallpapered (as quaint as it may be).
Artwork can be another touchy item. Even the most beautiful Renoir—not to mention a bold Rauschenberg—can give just a hint of doubt to the buyer. Again, if the buyers cannot envision themselves in the house on the day of the open house, then they will be more reluctant to make a high offer—or one at all.
My most memorable example of something “too specific” was the home with the large fiberglass tree built in the middle of the living room (go to the Real Estate Confidential Episode 1 video by clicking the “Connie on TV” link above). The owners couldn’t sell the home until I convinced them to remove the tree. The tree, of course, is an extreme example. But are you sure that a majority of people will feel completely at home in each room or with each item? If not, then change those features.
Spruce up with paint
You know how a new coat of paint can completely revive a room or the outside of a house. Use neutral solid colors, which will attract a wider swath of potential buyers. Even if a room is already in a neutral color, consider repainting it in order to give it a fresh look. Your house may be eighty years old, but fresh paint makes it look just built.
Brighten up with light
Nature is your cheapest and best tool. Bringing natural light into your home makes every room warmer, fresher, cleaner, and more inviting. This step is as easy as opening up the blinds or curtains of every window. Even if it is gray outside, buyers will feel more comfortable in an open and light house.
Consider the sense of smell
My previous suggestions have been mainly about how your house looks—but few people really think about the buyers’ other senses, such as how the house smells.
Before the open houses, avoid cooking with fish, garlic, onion, cabbage, or other potentially smelly foods. Also avoid spraying household cleaners around the house, as many people are very sensitive to such smells. Of course, however cliché it may be, the smell of baking pie or cookies seems to always make buyers instantly fall in love with the house.
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All these suggestions are quick, easy, and cheap—the most expensive change is the paint. Taking a little time to neutralize your home will not only allow buyers to envision themselves in the house but will also show them how you went through the extra effort to present your home. And I guarantee that the cost of the minor changes will be far outmatched by the higher asking prices.
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