Are you planning to renovate your home so you can get the highest possible sale price? If you are, then follow these easy cleaning, maintenance, and renovation tips on how to get the most for your sale.

Maintenance

Take the time to go over your every detail of your entire house.  It would be worth it to hire a home inspector prior to listing your house so that you can find out any possible deficiencies before potentials buyers walk through your front door.  If you are not planning to hire a home inspector prior to listing then take the time to really go through your home with a critical eye.  Some things to look for include torn or damaged window screens, moldy or missing caulking (inside and outside), rotting siding, decks, or handrails, worn out or missing weather stripping around windows and doors, ensuring all of your exterior and interior door handles are operational (be sure that they latch and that the locks work) uneven patio stones, cleaning any exterior gutters of leaves or debris, checking to ensure the slope of the flower beds or yard is away from your house, completing the annual furnace and air conditioner maintenance…  These are simple steps that take a little time, but wont cost you a lot of money.

Clean Your House and do What You Can to Make it Brighter

Nobody wants a gloomy house. To make your house more attractive to buyers, go through this simple exercise;  pretend you are coming to look at your house for the first time.  Stand on the street and walk up your driveway or front sidewalk.  What do you see?  Does your house look clean, bright and inviting?  Are the shrubs overgrown? are the windows clean? Once you get to the front door take a look at the door handle, is it rusty or worn?  Is the door or the key hole scratched?  Now you are inside, what do you see?  Is your entry bright?  This is what your potential new buyers will see within the first 30 seconds of coming to view your property.  You can make it or break it in these first 30 seconds.

Be sure to clean the walls, floors, and ceilings (you don’t want any cobwebs). Remove drapes, curtains (or replace them with thinner ones), and open your windows. Replace your old light bulbs with new or more powerful ones. How does your house smell when you walk in – old, dank, and musty?  Use an air freshener so that when potential buyers come into your home for the first time they aren’t taken aback by pet odours, or dirty shoes in the closet.

Updates and Renovations

The main selling features of your house are the kitchen and the washrooms, plus the flooring and the condition of the walls.

Painting

The first step is to paint the main areas, over time we all nick and bang the walls leaving marks and scrapes, especially by the front entrance.  Be sure to patch, prime and paint the the well used areas – hallways, doors and trims.  Doing a simple refresh will create an inviting environment for the new purchasers.

Flooring

Flooring an be an expensive venture. Depending on the size of your home it and when it was built will make a huge difference.  We find that new home buyers will want to put their own stamp on the home anyway, so I wouldn’t break the bank here.  However, take a look at your carpets and hardwood.  Are they scratched, stained, or worn through?  Hire a professional carpet cleaning company to bring some life back into your carpet, or a hardwood company to repair any scratches or worn areas on your hardwood floor.  Be sure all the grout lines in your tile are clean and replace any grout that is cracked or missing.

Bathrooms

You can easily refresh the look of your washroom without spending a lot of money.  A simple refresh like re-grouting and caulking of the showers and tile walls and floors.  Replace your washroom vanity, sink and faucet can be completed in a day and having your tub refinished will bring an old tired bathroom back to life.  Of course you can completely renovate your washrooms, but be sure to budget $10,000 to $12,000.

Kitchens

The kitchen is the heart of the home, this is where prospective buyers will go first.  There are some simple and cost effective things you can do to update your kitchen.  Take a look at your cabinets – are they worn, are the doors straight, do the doors open and close properly?  If you don’t have enough time or the budget to renovate from scratch you can (depending on the type of cabinets) have them painted, or re-stained.  When re-staining wood cabinets use the same colour and a product which has the varathane and stain in one application.  If your kitchen cabinets are in good shape, then consider updating the backsplash with a new tile, or replacing the counter top, sink and faucet.  The simple task of replacing all of the handles and knobs can really add a quick and dramatic improvement.

If you do have the budget and the time, renovating your kitchen and washrooms tend to add the most value to your home and help to create the quickest sale.  If you do chose to fully renovate your kitchens and washroom, be sure to plan far in advance.  Ordering cabinets, making selections and having a kitchen renovation completed can take 2-3 months, a washroom renovation is generally 2 weeks once the work has actually begun.

Renovating your home for sale can put some extra cash in your pocket.  Don’t miss out.