Home Selling Guides

If you are leaving your home vacant, you may want to save money by shutting off air conditioning or heating systems. This is a bad idea for a number of reasons.

First, many of your home’s systems depend on a fairly stable climate to work at maximum efficiency. It’s not good for pipes and appliances to experience large, frequent shifts in temperature. In addition, extreme heat can bring out unpleasant odors. Think about that stale smell when you first come back from vacation -- do you want buyers to encounter it when they enter your home?

Speaking of buyers, their comfort is the most important reason for keeping the home at a comfortable temperature. Whether the house is too hot or too cold, the uncomfortable buyer will be eager to leave and get back in his or her car rather than lingering to find out more about the house.

If you haven’t already, consider installing a smart home thermostat. Besides being a nice upgraded selling feature, it allows you to adjust the home’s AC or heat remotely so that you can ensure the house is always maintained at an optimal level, no matter the weather. In addition, you can set the thermostat higher or lower at night and on days when there are no showings, then adjust it for comfort when buyers are on the schedule.

A fresh coat of paint offers one of the highest ROIs (Returns on Investment) possible when it comes to preparing your home for buyers. If you are a careful and skillful amateur painter, paint it yourself to save even more money. If, however, you are not a good painter, hire a professional.

Why hire a pro? Having been in many homes with rushed, DIY paint jobs, the difference is striking. Bad color matching, sloppy edging, and drips on the trim or floor make a poorly completed paint job worse than no paint at all. Buyers not only have to repaint; they have to repaint and correct additional damage.

While you may be able to get away with just painting the walls and not the ceilings and trim work, be sure and paint ceilings if there are signs of previous water damage. Make sure that the water intrusion has been corrected and that the area has thoroughly dried out.

While some interior designers creating beautiful and dramatic looks with wallpaper, more often buyers think of wallpaper as old-fashioned and undesirable. Often, it is considered dated and, unlike an old-fashioned light fixture or other decorative elements, wallpaper is considered hard to remove as well. That means that buyers won’t want to deal with the mess and expense of removal, so you will probably have to do so for them.

Outdated flooring or flooring that is damaged should be replaced. Often, sellers are afraid to choose a new flooring because they might choose something that buyers wouldn’t like. In that case, they will add a flooring allowance in the property description to attempt to entice buyers while bypassing the problem altogether.

Here’s why that strategy doesn’t work: most buyers do not have the vision to overlook ugly or old-fashioned flooring or carpet. They would rather have a move-in-ready home than worry about choosing and installing new flooring or carpeting. If you are unsure about what type of flooring to choose, we can help you with that.