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Looking to Sell Your House Quickly? Follow These Tips

Looking to Sell Your House Quickly? Follow These Tips
January 10, 2022

Selling your house or condo is a major job. It requires careful planning, and the assistance of an experienced real estate agent to guide you through the process. One of the biggest challenges is understanding just how much work is required to prepare your home so it sells quickly. This includes a top-to-bottom repair and clean that can take a month to complete.

Follow these tips to sell your house quickly

In this article, we offer tips on how to prep your home that makes the countdown to listing day easier.

Do a Walk Through

Start by doing a walk through of your home and property from top to bottom. Look for every little thing that seems worse for wear or that needs repairs. This includes:

  • Burned-out lightbulbs
  • Outdated light fixtures
  • Leaky faucets
  • Holes in the wall
  • Broken, loose, or missing door knobs and cabinet pulls
  • Torn window screens

Buyers have eagle eyes, and will likely see every little eyesore as another deduction from their offer price.

Pack

Although your home isn’t even listed yet, it’s never too early to think about packing. This is a tedious job, but it is something you can start right away. And there’s a reason for this. You are going to find tons of stuff in your home you never or rarely use.

If you prepare yourself to pack now, you can weed out things as you go. Your goal is to reduce the things you no longer need to zero, and also clear out your closets and cupboards to 50% capacity to show off all that storage space that buyers love. This brings us to the next step: decluttering.

Declutter

With your packing boxes ready to go, you can slowly begin the decluttering process. The easy way is to start in the rooms you use the least. If you live in a small condo, begin with your storage areas.

The trick is to pack and declutter as you go, so target the things you don’t need right now. This is tough, but it is also very freeing and satisfying. You can finally get rid of any junk, and you might even find a gold mine of stuff you can sell. Basically, you are looking to pack the things you’ll take, find the stuff you can donate and sell, and put the rest out with the trash. Your process should include:

  • Storage and closets: Condos don’t have tons of closets and storage, which is why you need to free them up with a good decluttering.
  • Bathrooms: Go through all those samples, hand lotions that were too sticky, makeup flops and perfumes you were gifted and hate, and expired products and medicines, and toss them. This will liberate your bathroom and allow you to clear your counters and medicine cabinet, so everything looks more organized.

    Invest in a few organizers that allow you to sort everything neatly and keep it that way, such as hooks to hang things, baskets for smaller items, and shelves for the baskets if space is tight. There are many hanging organizers made for doors as well.

  • Kitchen: This is a nightmare for most homeowners, but is very important since buyers view the kitchen as the heart of the home. Your goal is to clear the counters and organize the cupboards, so everything looks neat. Avoid cramming things into the cupboards or pantry if you have one, as people will open them and see you are short on space. Use the same approach you did for the bathroom, tossing things you don’t need, and finding handy organizers to keep items tidy.
  • Bedrooms: Pack your out-of-season clothes, and sort everything else based on the stuff you can toss, etc. This will clean out the stuff you don’t need now, and also the things you can sell or give away. Then, organize everything and invest in some hooks, baskets, and items like shoe bags to make things look more spacious.
  • Entrance: Make sure you declutter thoroughly, making your entrance welcoming. Store away all the shoes and coats, and use baskets and hooks to keep everything neat and tidy. If you can, ask someone to hold onto all those winter boots and coats you don’t need just until you can sell the home.

Continue the process in each room until you’ve decluttered everything and packed stuff neatly.

Clean

Your cleaning list is guaranteed to be overwhelming. Once everything is decluttered, you’ll get a good idea of just how dirty your home is. Your moving out cleaning is best left to the professionals, but if you’re up to the challenge, here’s what you’ll need to tackle:

Bathrooms
  • Bathtub and shower enclosure
  • Inside, outside, and behind the toilet
  • Lights, mirrors, sink, countertops
  • Vacuum ceiling fan cover
  • Light switches, door knobs
  • Empty garbage bins
  • Vacuum/mop floors
  • Wipe baseboards and vanity inside and out
  • Whiten Grout
Bedrooms
  • Dust counters, table tops, picture frames
  • Clean mirrors and polish ornaments
  • Wipe switches and door knobs
  • Vacuum/mop floors
  • Wipe baseboards and window ledges
Kitchen
  • Clean inside the fridge and oven
  • Scrub stove top
  • Polish the fridge front
  • Clean the microwave
  • Backsplash, counter tops, cupboard fronts
  • Clean the sink
  • Wipe light switches and door knobs
  • Vacuum/mop floors
  • Wipe baseboards
  • Wipe window ledges
  • Wipe inside cabinets
  • Wipe inside drawers
Living/dining room
  • Clean mirrors and polish ornaments
  • Wipe switches and door knobs
  • Vacuum/mop floors
  • Wipe baseboards
  • Wipe window ledges
Laundry room (if you have one)
  • Clear air vent
  • Clear lint trap
  • Wipe washer/dryer
  • Clean floors

As you can see, this is heavy-duty work, so calling a cleaning service to tackle your moving out cleaning makes the most sense. You can also follow our cleaning guide for more guidance.

Neutralize

Next, you’ve got to neutralize every room. The decluttering was a good start, but now you’ve got to look at the items in the home that shout you live there. This includes:

  • Removing all your personal photos
  • Clearing and packing away all those collections, chachkas, souvenirs, CDs, books, etc.

Basically, you want to create a clean palette that allows buyers to see themselves living there.

Spruce

Last but not least, you want to spruce your home up a little, including:

  • Buying some neutral duvet covers for your beds.
  • Replacing the shower curtain and towels in your bathrooms with new, crisp white ones.
  • Adding a neutral area rug in the living room if you have cold, bare hardwood or laminate.
  • Making your dining room look like it is ideal for guests to set the mood.
  • Painting your whole condo with a fresh coat of neutral paint.
  • Setting up your balcony so it looks like a nice place to sip a cup of coffee or watch the sunset with a glass of wine, a chair or two, and maybe some flower baskets.

Make sure your home smells good too. Your thorough cleaning should accomplish this. However, it doesn’t hurt to ask your professional cleaners to do a special deodourizing such as steam cleaning the carpets and sofa.

If you are looking for a professional moving out cleaning that Toronto home sellers need, then speak to our pros at Maid4Condos today. You can reach us at 647-822-0601.

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