Selling your house can not only feel absolutely overwhelming – it is by no stretch an easy process. You’re looking at the house you’ve lived in for a good chunk of your life going “where the heck do I start” right? Good memories, bad memories are all reflected by stains in carpets, marks on walls, door locks that never got repaired, outdated paint on walls…ugh. You say “never mind, I’ll just stay” lol. But you would be surprised at how little you may need to fix, not replace, & can just let go of. In many cases, you can price your home according to obvious fixes that you’re not in the state of mind to deal with. You may sell your home “as-is” & the new home owner can just simply put in a “Request for Repairs” stating what they would like to have repaired – leaving you with the decision after accepting an offer instead of before you list. There are several options for you here & you should not at all be scared by this.
I have a few tips here with my experiences so far. First of all, don’t go overboard. I was SO READY to replace my carpet till I got it cleaned. We are always our worst critics. Everyone (my boyfriend & my dad lol) was saying there was no need to replace the carpet. But because I saw it every day & am so much harder on myself than anyone else, I didn’t even give it a 2nd thought. Until I realized the cost. So, I decided to go ahead & get them professionally cleaned by a highly reputable company (important). And VOILA – carpets look amazing.
You would be surprised at how much better your house will look by just cleaning, MINOR replacements, & possibly some fresh paint.
Which leads me to the next subject of painting the walls. THIS I believe can be vital to selling your home & not having it sit on the market for days. Maybe you have a beautiful deep red paint covering your walls (like my last house I at the time covered the walls with rich shades of earth tones spiced up with reds & deep oranges…that at the time were acceptable), or a fantastic blue bright turquoise colored bedroom that you adored at the time you chose it. I’m gonna be real honest with you here only cuz I care aboutchya, take a picture of it for you trip down memory lane photo album & PAINT OVER IT. You will make the money back from your sale that you wouldn’t make by it sitting on the market too long because 95% of the buyers are like “nope”. Paint it a neutral color & tone. It may be boring to you, but it’s what sells!! We lucked out in the department as our walls were already neutral & I never had the $$ to invest into any crazy paint colors.
Be reasonable in evaluating what needs to be replaced, painted, &/or repaired. It would be my pleasure to help guide you in this area as sometimes because it IS your own home, it can be difficult to be objective. Like I said, I thought for sure we needed to replace the carpet & either clean or paint the grout. However, after getting the carpets cleaned, I realized it was not at all necessary. I saved a couple-few thousand in that department. You never know, maybe the future resident would prefer laminate flooring throughout & will be looking to rip out all the brand new carpet you just spent your hard-earned money for.
Our repairs were minor thank God. A few missing tiles on an exterior wall, a missing lock on a door…there were things we could have gone overboard on – but honestly, I just wanted to move fast & do it affordably. Oh, actually one more thing I did that I don’t really know if it made a difference was missing patches of rock in the front. I made a last-minute trip to Star Nursery & picked up a few bags of rock (brought original rock to match up perfectly) & filled in the areas I felt were obvious. Little touches here & there go a long way!
In the end, it’s really about keeping the big picture in your mind. Pay attention to the details, but don’t forget your end goal.
