If you are selling your Waterloo Region home, getting it ready for the market is one of the first tasks you need to tackle. That may not only changing the interior decor to better suit a home for sale and ensuring that everything inside is in as good a working order as possible, but paying attention to the exterior as well and working on its curb appeal.
The exterior of your home is the first physical impression that potential buyers are going to get of your home, and making the right first impression is everything. Here are some of the things you should be looking at when preparing the exterior of the home for its first showings.
Check the Windows and Doors
Do your windows and any door glass need cleaning on the outside? Does your home’s trim or exterior in general need painting? Are there any cracks in the windows that you either didn’t notice or have been purposely ignoring for some time? Do the window treatments look good from the outside?
If you notice any of these things are awry then they need to be addressed and taken care of before the for sale sign ever goes up in your front yard because any one of them will seriously drag its curb appeal down (even those dingy drapes)
Steps and Pathways
Any and all steps and/or pathways that lead to and from your home need to be clean and in good repair. Even the weeds poking up between the cracks in your paving stones need to be removed.
Yes, it will probably take a few hours to get your pathways looking as close to perfect as possible but the effort will be worth it as those first impressions people get as they approach your front door means so much.
Lighting is important too. If a potential homebuyer visits the home with their agent at dusk will they be greeted by a well-lit pathway to the front door or left stumbling up the driveway in the dark? If the latter is the case then that’s something that needs to be fixed immediately.Â
Check the Roof
The one area many for sale by owner home sellers forget to check is the roof. A roof that is in poor condition not only looks bad but can actually end up killing a potential sale, especially if any damage is serious.
Rather than getting up a ladder and poking around yourself call in a local roofer to give your for home’s roof a checkup – and then follow any repair suggestions he or she might make.
Keep the Good Work Up
Your home may be on the market for three days, three weeks or even three months. However long it is on the market though, it is important that you maintain the neat and tidy appearance of its exterior at all times.
While you have complete control over when potential buyers actually enter your home to view it, you have none over those times when a potential buyer may do a ‘drive by’ to have a quick look before making an appointment to see it in all its glory.