So, it’s the end of the year, and you find yourself in a situation where you’re trying to sell off your home or property. Generally, the year’s end is a time of fewer buyers, because people would rather focus on celebrations and being with family.
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, there’s a sizable drop of 17.3% in the sale of housing units right now. With median home prices also increasing by $11,000, selling your property is going to require a little more effort than you expected.
However, the one upside to all this is that the buyers you encounter are going to be serious, and thus, worth impressing. In this article, let’s look at four aspects to address to make your home as attractive to viewers as possible.
1. Start With the Exterior
Like it or not, first impressions form the basis of how potential buyers judge your home. This becomes particularly important in competitive markets such as coastal cities like San Francisco. Even with the market the way it is, there’s still a lot of competition here.
Since 2019, the city has lost over 45,000 jobs, and given the city’s high cost of living, some need to bail out quickly. If you’re going through something like this, you can sell your home in the San Francisco Bay area fast with johnbuysbayareahouses.com and similar services. It’s particularly useful when you’re on a short timeline and need your home sold before the year’s end.
That said, if you don’t mind waiting for the right buyer, paying attention to the exterior should be your first order of business. We recommend approaching this both functionally and aesthetically. That means ensuring that none of your external yard lights need replacing while also drawing attention to key focus areas with Christmas wreaths and decorations.
If you have the resources, we highly recommend giving the outer walls a few coats of paint. If that’s not an option, see if you can hire a professional to wash the walls and visible sections of the roof. It just might be enough to make your home look fresh. Do your best to find any sore spots outside, and when you’re done, head inside. This is going to be where the bulk of your efforts go.
2. Seal Up Drafts and Ensure Insulation Integrity
This is one of the most practical steps you can take, especially during this winter season. The last thing you want is for a potential buyer to enter your home and feel like they stepped into a walk-in freezer.
You’ll want to hold a lit candle or incense stick, walk around your home, and look for potential draft areas. These are often found near attic hatches, doors, and windows. If you see the smoke from your candle or incense stick flicker and suddenly move, you’ve found yourself a draft.
Hopefully, you’ve taken a trip to a hardware store and gotten yourself some weatherstripping, caulking, and door sweeps. Simply follow the instructions on the packaging, and you’re good to go. While you’re at it, ensure that the insulation around your windows is good as well.
The U.S. Department of Energy notes that heat gain and loss through windows account for up to 30% of energy use. They also recommend either upgrading to higher-efficiency windows or simply replacing them outright. Dealing with insulation issues can be tricky, so this is one area where you might want to get some professional help.
3. Address Creaky Floors and Loose Fittings
If you’re trying to stage a house, squeaks from your floorboards can be extremely embarrassing in front of a potential buyer. Nothing yells ‘poorly-maintained house’ like the sound of loud creaks and groans when climbing stairs or in random parts of the home. Thankfully, fixing floorboard noises isn’t that hard and it’s a little confusing why people never bother to address the issue earlier.
First, you need to understand what’s making the noise. Creaking sounds usually occur when a nail securing a floorboard gets loose. When this happens, the boards no longer fit tightly together and they start to rub against each other. According to Home Depot, the easiest solution here is lubrication. Simply apply some powdered graphite lubricant around the gaps of a noisy floorboard and test it again. The creaks should be gone.
There are a few other solutions if you don’t mind rolling up your sleeves. These include using a shim to fill in any gaps between floor beams and floorboards or driving screws in from the bottom.
4. Aim for the Neutral Vibe
Understanding buyer psychology is one of the most fundamental aspects of staging a home. That might sound challenging, but all you have to do is remember that buyers are human.
Thus, imagine the kind of vibe you would be looking for when trying to scout out potential homes. As a buyer, you already know that every home is going to be relatively tidy, so that’s not something you’re thinking about. Instead, there are a few subtle factors that all of us unconsciously look for when entering a potential home.
One such subtle factor is visualization. You have to remember that a key point of staging a property is to give potential buyers the chance to imagine their life inside it. Most people get turned off a potential property if it feels like the personality of the owner comes off too strongly via the decor.
This is why many professional stagers will rent out storage space to move possessions that can break immersion. Of course, that doesn’t mean going all barebones on the decor. You just have to think twice about the vibes you’re creating.
To summarize, if you have the time, staging your home is something you want to give a little extra thought to. Buying a home isn’t a small investment, and with real estate being high across the country, people want to be 110% sure of their decision.
That’s why, as someone trying to sell a home, you want to ensure that potential buyers feel like saying, ‘Yeah, this looks perfect.” Coaxing out those four simple words is what your entire staging process should be aiming to achieve.
