Lately, we've been writing a love of articles about the best practices on timing when to sell your home, tips to stage it to make it look it's best, and things to avoid when considering putting your home on the market. There is one thing though that we'd like to share today that is perhaps the MOST important factor to consider when putting your home on the market. Simply put, you need take a look at the curb appeal factor of your home and make sure it's in check, BEFORE you list your home for sale.
Curb appeal is critically important. As they say, "First impressions are everything". When preparing your home for sale, you want to get eveything in line, giving a prospective buyer the maximum opportunity to literally put themselves mentally inside your home, envisioning what it might be like to live in a home like yours, and the lifestyle it would offer.
If a prospective buyer pulls up to your home and the outside is unkempt and sloppy, it will immediately put them in a bad frame of mind. This will cause them to either skip considering your home all together, or even worse, thinking less of your home and giving you a low offer that you are not expecting. You want to avoid these two scenarios at all costs. To those ends, today we thought we would share with you five easy tips to follow, that will ensure your home has the best curb appeal possible.
1) Get A Power Washer And Use It
Overtime, whether you realize it or not, walkways, driveways, stairs and the eves under the roof of your home will get dirty. This is something that just happens. Just because it happens to everyone's home though does not make this acceptable. Use your power washer to get rid of that layer of dirt, dust and cob webs that have been accumulating over the winter. Pay special attention to any areas that show any sort of staining. It could be something that just needs a little extra attention with the power washer, or could be an early warning of a potentially larger problem that you should have examined by a professional.
2) Make Sure Your Flower Beds Don't Look Like Graveyards
One of the easiest ways to give your home better curb appeal is by simply cleaning all the dead things out of your flower beds. For very little money you can go to a nursery and purchase an array of colorful flowers to plant in place of all the old stuff that will make your front yard look festive, eye catching and vibrant.
While you are stripping away the dead and dormant plants, take a bit extra time to clear out any fallen leaves and branches as well, in preparation for step number 3.
3) Add Mulch or Gorilla Hair To Your Yard Beds
Do you remember when you first put your landscaping in? The mulch throughout your planter beds was fresh, clean and gave the entire yard a sense of newness. Time goes on though, storms happen and "life happens", making keeping this part of your yard fresh and new looking an after thought.
Putting mulch throughout your front yard's planter beds will make it look as if you spent extra time and expense making sure the front yard was just perfect. This will be held positively by prospective buyers, putting them in the psychological mindset from the very beginning that you pay attention to details and keep everything in your house in working order.
4) Put Color In Pots By The Front Door
Decorative pots by the front door are always a welcoming item to help boost curb appeal. Taking colorful flowering plants and adding them to the pots, in a varying degree of heights and types can make the entrance to your home very inviting. Remember when you do this, you want to keep things symmetrical, so it's pleasing to the eye and not distracting. If you are putting pots on both sides of your front porch and door for instance, make sure that you put the same plants on each side, giving it a clean, even look.
Curb appeal is a critical element to ensuring your home is looked upon in a positive fashion and that prospective buyers not only want to tour your home, but present the best possible purchase offer as well. If you are looking for advice on things you can do to get your home looking the best it possibly can, contact us anytime. We are happy to help you in any way we can.
