It is critical to know what to do to get your house sale ready. We have built a checklist to get your house prepped for sale. It does not matter if you have been busy living your life and have not kept your house sale ready, or if you have a rental that just needs some updating or upgrading to yield you top dollar. Either way, you will need a checklist or a skilled real estate agent as it is critical to your success.

The first thing you will need to know is, what do potential buyers want in a home and if those upgrades and updates will yield you more profit and/or a quicker home sale.

What Do Potential Buyers Want?

Every real estate market has different buyer markets. We have noticed when the home values are lower, home buyers want less out of a home-like in 2011. Then, when homes are scarce and values are high, home buyers actually become picky about what they want. Then once home values are high and inventory is medium to high, buyers become super picky.

The following are common things we have found that potential buyers want when you are selling your house. They typically give you a positive return. However, every market and every house is unique so one of our real estate agents will best answer what is best for getting your house ready to sell. If you are thinking about selling your home, then look at possibly doing the following if your home does not have them.

Kitchen Makeover

There are several things to focus on, starting with your cabinets, then your countertops, and then your appliances. Many potential buyers like light cabinets and granite countertops. You can paint your cabinets a nice white or grey, and maybe even add some blue to brighten up the kitchen. Then with the right granite selection and installation, you can add value to your house at an affordable cost. We have seen many buyers liking white countertops.

Mixing the right cabinets and countertops together will make your kitchen pop. Then add the right kitchen appliance package together will cap it off. You can usually find affordable stainless steel appliances to use in your kitchen. They do not have to be brand new appliances either.

Painting Makeover

When it comes to painting your house, go into it realizing you do not have to paint the entire house. Yet do not forget, sometimes you do need to paint the entire house. For those who do not have to paint the entire house, there are key areas that we have discovered that can help your home sell quicker and sometimes for more money depending on the situation on the current feel of the paint. Remember this in all areas too, is that we start at market value and sometimes we have to paint because it will bring us to market value where other things will give our houses a paradigm shift to enter into a higher market value as we changed searchable items. When it comes to painting, it is an item we focus on bringing your home to market value.

Popouts & Facia

Sometimes you can get away with just painting your pop-outs and facia if your paint is older on your house. Not all houses have pop-outs and facia boards, so clearly these would apply only if you have them. By cleaning up your pop-outs and facia, it will spruce up your house and draw less attention to the overall life of the paint on the body of the house.

Inside Walls, Doors, and Trim There are several reasons to repaint the inside of your house. You could simply have old worn paint, scuffed up walls, or colors that you love, but your general audience would not love so much. As I am writing this article, going with select grays, blues, and whites will attract more buyers than other colors. At one time a beige or tan would have been the color. Yet, the two-tone with white trim and doors are still in.

Flooring

Flooring is an important part of selling your home and getting your house ready to sell. When you need a complete flooring makeover to get your house ready to sell, we like to see the least amount of carpet. We have had great success with using LifeProof Laminate Flooring in all of the main traffic areas and carpet in the bedrooms.

Depending on the quality of your flooring and the elements involved in its use will determine if you need to update or upgrade your existing flooring. Our real estate agent will guide you through this decision process.

Damaged and Broken Things

While one of our real estate agents is doing an audit of your house to get your house ready to sell, they will be looking for additional worn, damaged or broken items that should be replaced to help sell your home for top dollar quickly. To have one of the smoothest experiences selling your home, we recommend having a licensed home inspection do an additional audit of your house to help reduce fallout for when the prospective buyer goes into escrow on your house and does their own inspection.

Landscaping Makeover

Just like when you are going on an interview for a job, you most likely get a haircut if you need one, and we recommend the same basic logic when it comes to your landscaping. Prospective home buyers will look at your landscaping, and the lack of can be ok, but it will need to be at the very least, weed and debris free. Then if you have a landscaped yard, then a regular good mow and trimming of your trees and bushes will do the magic to help sell your house for top dollar. Just think: curb appeal and first impressions.

Staging

Real Estate staging is a very valuable part of the selling process to get your home ready for selling. The staging process starts at the front door. The basics will cover a few basic categories if it is lived in. At your front door, make sure it is fun and welcoming, and once you enter your house, make sure to have it clean, decluttered, and depersonalized.

We recommend visiting a few new builds with one of our agents to get a feel of how they stage their models. They have spent years and lots of money to master the staging part of getting your home ready to sell. Keep in mind, the selling process includes making your house neutral to the biggest group of potential buyers.

Wrapping it up

Since you are here, we can assume you are getting ready to sell your home, and this basic checklist of areas to target will help you get your house ready to sell. For some of you, the money might not be available to sell your house. If you are ready to list your home, we have different partnerships that can help you solve the financial part of your curb appeal and home fix-up.

We are here to help you take care of getting your house ready to sell. We have financial partners to help you pay for your repairs, updates, and upgrades. We also have vendor relationships to help you fix up your house. Our listing agent will go over your listing price based on doing nothing and off of doing XYZ to your house. A listing price is a strategic number and not the home selling price.

It is wise to get your house repairs done before you take your listing live to help reduce fallouts in your escrow. Let's get together to go over our in-depth list of things you can do to get your house prepped to sell in Arizona. Contact our agent, Brittany, to make sure you get your house ready to go to market.