Getting Your Home ready to Sell – Curb Appeal
If you are thinking about putting your house on the market, there are several things to consider before doing so. Now that the real estate market has cooled off, selling your home can be difficult, especially if you are unprepared.
Creating “curb appeal” is one of the most important issues when competing in today’s real estate market. Without it, buyers will more than likely not even think about viewing the inside of your home. Unless of course, you’ve priced your home much less than all the other comparable homes in your neighborhood. Under-pricing your home is not always the best thing to do though, especially if you have a considerable amount of money invested in your home.
Curb appeal is attractiveness of the exterior of your property. The term was extensively used in the United States during the housing boom and continues to be used as an indicator of the initial appeal of a property to prospective buyers. Curb appeal is critical to snaring a buyer for your home. Therefore, you need to prepare your home to sell according to what homebuyers expect to get when purchasing a home to be in the running. Having “curb appeal” simply means showing the front exterior of your home and yard as appealing and well-maintained, with that “gotta have it” appearance.
What do most buyers expect to see when they look at a home? First impressions are lasting impressions when it comes to any real estate market. But, don’t be discouraged. This certainly doesn’t mean you have to completely renovate your home in order to sell it. Try driving by your home first and take a good look at it. You may like the way it looks, but would a prospective buyer like it enough to spend their “hard earned” money on it? Creating a look that is pleasing to the eye is not that difficult. Basic improvements in the front landscaping and front exterior of your home is usually all that is needed to generate curb appeal. This is the best place to start when preparing your home for a sale.
One thing we know for sure homebuyers don’t like to see peeling paint, weedy grass, empty planting beds and broken fences when they view a home. This means work, and more work for them and that puts your house at the bottom of their list of homes to consider purchasing. If you don’t want to scare off potential buyers, these things need to be taken care of before you put your house on the market.
To get a general idea of what buyers desire in a home, just leaf through a few home and garden magazines. Even though most of the homes depicted in the photographs are not the norm, most people are media-oriented, so presenting the front of your home and yard as “visually” appealing as possible will at least get their “feet” in your door. Once homebuyers start imagining themselves living in your home, then you have certainly won half the battle when it comes to selling your home in a “cool” real estate market.
Continually developing “ideas for outdoor living”
November 21st, 2009 at 2:23 am
I guess this is as good a place as any to let you know how much I like your site.
It’s great keep up the good work.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
When we sold our house curb appeal really helped make the sale. We had sod professionally installed to ensure it looked perfect, which it did, and planted new flowers.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?