Clean your front door, porch, outside railings and steps. This is cheaper than repainting and makes a world of difference. Once the outside entrance is clean, decide if the paint really needs a touch up.

Location and Price

When buyers are ready to look for a home they many times will start their search from their computer.  Buyers will go to their favorite real estate website and type in their parameters.  How much they can afford to spend on a home, how many bedrooms, baths and location.  From here they receive hundreds of potential properties.   This is why it is very important to talk with a reputable Realtor® so they can help you price your home competitively.  They will look at many variables like what comparable properties have sold recently in your area, how long were they on the market and what they think your list price should be.  This is where having an experienced Realtor® is important. 

Pictures and description of your home

Once a potential buyer has pulled up potential homes that meet their criteria they will start clicking on pictures of houses that appeal to them.   Having your home professionally Staged by an Accredited Staging Professional (ASP) Stager will help.  Hire a reputable ASP Stager that has a proven track record of Staging and selling homes.  An ASP Stager will advise you on suggestions for curb appeal, paint color recommendations, and suggestions on what you can do to make your home more visually appealing.  If you have a vacant house to sell many Staging companies have furniture and accessories they can bring in and Stage the home showing the homes assets and giving the home the emotional connection buyers need.  Once the home is professionally staged, the Realtor® can take photos and upload them onto MLS.  It’s very important to have great photos of your home.  Pictures should not be blurry or taken from weird angles.  The better the picture, the better your home will look.  You want a potential buyer to see the home at its very best.  This is why you should Stage your home prior to taking pictures and listing it.  You want the pictures in MLS to show your house in its best condition.

Curb Appeal

Once a buyer has seen the home(s) that interest them, they will often drive by the home.  Many times a buyer will drive by multiple times, both during the day and at night time.  At night time leave your outside and inside lights on.  Let buyers see your home.   It is imperative to make sure your home has curb appeal.  Curb appeal will make buyers want to come inside and see more!  Make sure your grass is cut.   Put fresh pine needles or mulch in the flower beds and around the trees.  Remove all trash cans, toys, hoses and clutter from the yard.  Make sure that your roof, trim and shutters are in excellent condition and there is no peeling paint, rotten wood or broken gutters or windows.   If buyers see any of this often times they will drive by and not go inside because they think the home has not been well maintained.

The interior should be model home clean

Now that the buyers have driven by the home, love what they see and want to come inside and see more you need to be sure the interior of the home captures them emotionally and sells them on the life style they are looking for.   When a buyer walks into the home he or she will make up their mind in less than 30 seconds if this home appeals to them and if they want to continue seeing the home.  One saying I’ve heard is “If a buyer can smell it – you won’t sell it”.   Remove all pets, pet toys, litter boxes and pet beds from the home.   Contrary to what most people believe, the majority of people are NOT dog or cat lovers and many people are highly allergic.  Do you want to lose a potential buyer because of your pet?  No!  The home should not smell like food, pets or smoke.  A professional Home Stager will help you with this, either by giving you ideas and suggestions on things you can do to remove, reduce or eliminate the smells.   Don’t try to use air fresheners or candles to cover the smell.  Many buyers are turned off by these strong cover-ups and will leave.   Oftentimes, homeowners are not even aware of these smells because they live in the home and it’s what’s normal or natural for them.    

Remove extra furniture and storage items in rooms.   Your bedrooms should look like a bedroom, not like a storage room.  You’re selling valuable real estate, not your extra stuff.  If the home is vacant, bring in key pieces of furniture and accessories to show the home.  Buyers cannot envision the size and scale of a room from pictures if the rooms are empty.    You don’t have to have furniture in every room, but it’s important to stage the main living areas of a home.  Buyers buy on emotion.  If the rooms are empty, there is nothing for the buyer to connect with emotionally and many people lack the ability to envision their furniture in the room and see themselves living there.  So if you house is vacant, stage the main living areas and give buyers an idea of how they can live in the home. 

 Once your home has been professionally cleaned and staged it’s very important to keep it in model home condition.  If you cannot keep it clean because of your busy schedule, hire a house cleaner to clean it while it is being listed.  Buyers will be calling at any given time, sometimes with only a few hours notice.  Your home should reflect the hard work and care you have invested in it and sell the potential buyer.  If a home has dirty dishes in the sink or toys scattered about it’s hard for buyers not to be distracted by your clutter.    

Remember you only get one chance to make a first impression!  Make sure it counts!

We get used to living in our own filth or we just don’t look at it as a priority. Regardless of which it is for you or your clients, everyone will notice a dirty house as much as they notice a clean house, no matter their personal standards.

I want to discuss floors in this issue. So let’s start with the look, feel, condition and cleanliness of your carpet.If it smells and you have had it professionally cleaned twice to eliminate the odor, you may need to remove the carpet and replace the pad. But, let’s try a few old remedies first. Use air absorbing products such as baking soda and charcoal in abundance for the duration of your rehab and when you are not showing the house.

You can leave multiple open containers of baking soda and tin dishes of charcoal briquettes out in the open, all over the house. Both of these products absorb order without leaving a cover up odor in their path. They look terrible, so you have to make sure they are out of view when showing the house, or when people are peaking in the windows.

I also recommend that you use baking soda in all of your appliances and cabinets and the dishes of briquettes in all of the closets. You should put them all away before showing a house.

If you still can’t get out the smell, there are a variety of other products that people use, choose your favorite as I think they all work about the same. I would also recommend that you work with a carpet cleaner that specializes in smells. Yep, there are some that do and some that don’t so get a referral.

Okay, enough of the smells. Your carpets, when cleaned, will often bring other spots to the surface and force a dark line of gunk to the outside edges near the baseboards. Be prepared in advance for this and ask the cleaning crew prior to their first cleaning, what sort of guarantees they have for this type of situation, should it arise. You need a good crew that has the correct tools to lift all the stains while they are there and run next to the baseboards, or at least one that understands the process well enough to offer a free second visit.

Next, be prepared to let these rugs dry. Don’t rush them or let people walk on them while they are wet. If this happens, the wet rug will actually attract more dirt than the dry one and all of your efforts will have been in vain.

Finally, once the rugs are completely dry, you will need to vacuum them. Do this in both directions to really get the fibers to lift. The slower that you can vacuum, the better the carpet will look when you are finished. By following this process carefully, your carpets will look refreshed, soft and clean. Just what the new buyer ordered.

Obviously, linoleum can be cleaned with soap and water, but with hard wood floors, I prefer Murphy’s. There are many hardwood floor cleaners, but this one continually makes the floor look clean without leaving streaks.

Make sure you are using warm water, not hot and that you add the solution to the water. I also prefer a soft head mop instead of a sponge mop as you are able to clean in circles versus a straight line, eliminating the chances of missing a strip or leaving a streak.

Once again, leave plenty of time for the floor to dry before you allow anyone to walk on it so you don’t have “foot prints” across your nice clean floor.

The cleaner each aspect of your home, the faster and more profitable your sale.

Karen Schaefer is an Investor, Writer, Speaker and Property Designer. She is the founder of Simple Appeal, Inc., the Premier Nationwide Staging and Design Company as well as APSD, The Association of Property Scene Designers. She is known nationwide as the Expert on selling properties in ½ the time at full market value. If you would like to learn more about Home Staging, Curb Appeal, Real Estate Marketing and Selling.

To get started, place a drop cloth under the door. Alternatively, if you would like a better work surface, take the door off the hinges by removing the pins from the hinges. Place the door on top of two sawhorses for an even surface. Once in place, the process for painting the door is simple.

- Work from the top of the door to the bottom.

- If the door is a flush door (such as a hollow core door) roll the paint on using a lint free cover. Then, use a brush in the direction of the grain to complete the look.

- If you have a panel door, the process is slightly different. Paint the recesses of the doors first. Then, pain the panels followed by the horizontal rails. Finally paint the vertical stiles