How Little Things Make a Big Difference

When you are preparing your home for sale it is important to pay attention to every last detail—no matter how small.  You would be surprised how the smallest little things can turn buyers off to a home.

When you are staging your home for sale, the first thing you should do is take a walk through your entire house.  Look for any little thing that may deter your buyers.  Those little annoyances that you have learned to live with—a leaky faucet tap, a creaky door that sticks—need to be fixed.  Any of these little things send a signal to your buyer that says that this house is old and falling apart.  Even if the only problem in the entire house is a leaky tap, your buyer can still walk away without an offer simply because of the leaky tap.

Overcrowded rooms may seem like a minor issue to you but can really put off your buyer.  You may think that it doesn’t matter what’s inside the room because it’s the house that’s selling and not the furniture.  However, overcrowding a room with too much furniture can make the room look much smaller, as well as make it hard to move around.  Overcrowding can also hide pleasant aspects of the home such as windows, wall moldings, hard wood floors and detailed vents—things that you should be showing off!

Finally, get rid of your personal memorabilia.  Things like photos of your child’s high school graduation, baby pictures of your nephews and the bowling trophy you won in 1987 need to go.  These things make the house look like it belongs to you, which causes an immediate emotional detachment by the buyer.  You want to keep anything that attaches the house to you out of the picture.  The buyer is looking for something that they can call home and it’s difficult for them to imagine themselves living in the space with all of your personal artifacts scattered around.

So before you begin showing your house you have to get it ready, and remember that even the little things make a big difference.