There sometimes comes a time in life when we need to sell our old home and move on to a new one. Like anything you are trying to sell, appearances matter, and in this case, they matter a lot! If you want your old home to become a hot property in today’s highly competitive real estate market, then you will need to make sure it looks its absolute best, or those potential buyers are just going to drive right on by! Here are some good sense tips to help you make sure your home for sale has that all-important curb appeal!
Windows – Just as our eyes are both the window to our souls and the glass we look out at the world from, so it is with a house’s panes. If your home’s windows are dirty, dingy, and water-streaked they are not reflecting value at anyone who sees them! Clear, sparkling windows are a must if you want that house to sell, dirty windows are one of the top complaints home shoppers place on their unwanted list! To make sure your windows look their very best we recommend you request professional window cleaning servicescome pay your home a visit, and work their magic! They have the tools and the talent to make sure every inch of your home’s windows look as good as new, and maybe even better! Let the sunshine in, and the buyers along with it!
Front Yard – As we grow older we tend to neglect certain parts of our home that require a bit more than just casual maintenance, maybe even needing us to do some actual roll-up-the-sleeves work! The front yard is one of the first casualties of this malaise, as over the years the lawn gets mowed less frequently, the shrubbery goes without trimming, the flowers droop wilted and neglected, and the weeds are joyously celebrating your yard work ennui! The path from the sidewalk is cracked and broken, and the porch swing has fallen from its mountings to lay in a heap on the peeling, half-rotten deck, a crumpled reminder of happier times.
The tangled mess that is now your front yard is well on its way to becoming a jungle, and that is a huge turn-off, especially considering potential buyers actually have to walk through its groping vines to get to the front door, if they even dare! We recommend you hire a professional yard maintenance service to bring order from chaos before you even consider putting your house on the market!
Have them trim up the ornamentals that can still be saved, and haul away the ones that can’t, then plant a whole bunch of bright new flowers all over the place, because everyone loves flowers! Mow that grass back down to a height that’s actually short enough to walk through, and repair the cracks in that walkway before somebody trips and hurts themselves! A tidy, nicely planted, and well-tended yard is like a great big, bright, happy sign that says Buy Me!
Paint – At one time this house was painted an actual colour, but now that it has been left to peel and gather grime for so many years, tortured by the sun and rain, it’s impossible to say what colour that actually was so long ago, and the only name you can give it today is ugly. Appearances, yes, appearances, they matter, and this is not a good look at all! This place is just a few months away from being that creepy old dilapidated house that everybody in the neighbourhood thinks is haunted, the kind of place where kids dare each other to ring the doorbell on stormy nights, and even good, sensible adults tend to quicken their step when passing by. Unless your buyers are the Addams Family, this spook show has zero chance of selling!
Do yourself and your neighbourhood a big favour and hire professional painters to come give the house a total makeover, it’s got to happen! They say that white is the best colour for selling, but this has come under some doubt in recent years, with cool blue-grey, forest green, sunflower yellow, and dark red all in the running as the next “It” shade to draw those buyers inside.
We hope this helps you tame that beast of an old house and get it ready for the market! Good luck!
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