Preparing your home to sell may be a lot of work, but if you make the effort up front, the sales process is much smoother. From dealing with clutter to signing the closing paperwork, it is important to present your house the best way possible to ensure a quick sale at the best possible price. Continue on for information on preparing your home to sell with ease.

Declutter

The first step to selling your home is to get rid of clutter. This will help later down the road when getting ready for showing and open houses, and helps you better identify issues with the home that could show up during an inspection.

Pack up as much as possible into a basement, closet, or storage. Remove as much as possible from counters, walls, tables, desks, and other surfaces to make the home appear very clean and open. Consider removing furniture from cluttered rooms to open up the space and make the room appear larger.

Make Needed Repairs

Now that you can see the entire home, do a visual inspection on your own and identify any repairs needed before listing the home. Consider a fresh coat of paint, patch holes in walls, fill in chipped woodwork, and make the house look like new.

Taking it a step further, you can have a handyman come out and look for issues that could come up in an inspection that you can fix before the buyer finds them.

Depersonalize

While it is your home today, you want every visitor to see themselves living in the home. To do that, you should depersonalize. Pack up any family pictures and photos that are sitting out and replace them with artwork that anyone could enjoy. By making your home appear as generic as possible, you are appealing to the widest audience of potential buyers.

If you really want to go all out, taking down sports memorabilia, exotic art, and anything that is sentimental to you but worthless to someone else. Think about the expression that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Your stuff is your treasure, not someone else’s.

Find the Right Agent

Now that your house is in good shape and getting closer to listing, it is time to find the best real estate agent for your needs. Interview several agents to find the right fit. If you don’t know where to start, AgentHarvest has you covered.

AgentHarvest offers listings of qualified, vetted agents across the country who are perfect for your needs. Search by location and view licenses and qualifications to ensure you find the agent who is best for your needs. Some agents are accredited with special skills for groups like veterans and the elderly and others have undergone training for investments, foreclosures, and other unique properties and situations. With AgentHarvest, you can rest easy that you have the right agent for your sale.

Invest in Profitable Upgrades

Walk through the house with your new agent to look for additional repairs and profitable home upgrades. In many cases, small upgrades in your kitchen or bathrooms could yield a profitable increase in home sale price.

Look out for upgrades to the floors, paint, kitchen, and bathrooms as the most lucrative areas of the home to fix up. Flooring and paint make a huge visual change to the home quickly. Bathrooms and kitchens are typically the most profitable parts of the home to invest for a higher home value.

Prepare for Showings and Open Houses

After all of the work is complete, go through the home again with your agent to prepare for showings and open houses. Finish up decluttering and depersonalizing. Then do a deep clean and organize areas of your home to put the property’s best foot forward.

Organize your closets, garage, and basement. Put away any item sitting out on any surface or counter. When you’re done, it should look like a staged model home. Ask your real estate agent and a couple of friends or relatives for the brutal, honest truth about what you need to do to make your home perfect for selling. Don’t be offended if your taste is not the same as a generic American house. But suck it up and go with whatever is mainstream.

Sold!

Now it’s time to play the waiting game. Stay in contact with your agent, host an open house, and be prepared to leave in the event of a showing. You never need to meet or talk to the buyer. That’s what your agent is for. They should make the selling process as easy as possible.

Once you get an offer your agent will guide you through the process of dealing with inspections, appraisals, and closing paperwork. Once the details are worked out you can sign on the dozen or so dotted lines and your home is sold!

If you are buying or selling a house and are looking to hire a successful real estate agent to help you through the process, take a look at AgentHarvest's list of top-ranking local Realtors in your area. We found these agents by examining their sales track records, awards, rankings, client testimonials and by conducting personal interviews.