We’re trying to get our house ready for sale. The market in our area has really picked up, especially for “starter” homes like ours. We’ve found a home we’d love to buy, so we’re thinking of writing an offer that is conditional on the sale of our house. Our house, however, isn’t 100% ready to be listed/shown. These are the things we would like to do before listing, but due to this other place, our timeline has been pushed up a bit (we didn’t think we’d find something quite so soon).
We both work full time and have a preschool-aged child, so free time to get a lot done is tough to come by. So I’m turning to my fellow Dopers to find out how we should prioritize our to-do list, assuming that we can’t get everything done. Help?!?!
We have a half duplex that should fetch around $230,000 to $240,000. It has a new kitchen (4 years old) and a newish bathroom (5 years old). It is one of the nicest places on our street.
To-Do:
Interior paint - living room, dining room, hallway, and one bedroom (our current paint is a flat, very bland, very worn out muddy white colour). Bathroom, kitchen, and two bedrooms are already done.
Baseboards - they’re only halfway done. We’re replacing the original cheap brown stuff with nicer, more substantial white ones. I believe we have most of the materials we need, it’s just a matter of finding the time (and space) to get them in.
Painting the interior doors - they are cheap brown ones, and our realtor suggested painting them a nice white colour to brighten things up.
De-cluttering (I am pretty sure this should be number #1).
New moulding around the interior doors - we’ve done it in a couple of rooms but not all.
Painting the front door - it’s white but dirty and kind of beat up looking, plus when we painted the exterior, we got a few drips on it.
My guess is #6, #4, #1, #2, #3, #5? What do you all think?
De-clutter, then de-clutter some more, then de-clutter some more. When you’re done, de-clutter some more. Rent a POD or the Candian equivalent if the POD company isn’t operating in Canada, and get the clutter out of the house. Live without it until you’ve sold. Make sure your closets and cabinets and any storage areas are not packed to the gills - make them look neat and spacious.
My main difficulty when looking for houses was houses that were packed with stuff. If I couldn’t tell how deep the closets were because they were full, or if I couldn’t easily walk around a room because there was too much furniture or clutter, I wasn’t interested in looking further.
I agree with Portwest and Motorgirl so my list would look something like 4, 6, 4, 3, 4, 4, 2, 4, 1, 4, 4, 5.
I’ve bought and sold several homes in multiple states and find that most people can/will overlook wall paint as long as it isn’t horribly bold (blood red, lime green, etc.) and the walls are clean. Anything that is cluttered or dirty is an instant turn-off for many.
We’re renting a “Go Box” - a portable storage unit, and we’ll cram as much in there as we can. The anal side of me really hates the idea of packing stuff away without sorting through it first, but the realistic side of me knows that if I started to go through everything at this late date, it would take me far too long to make any headway.
We’ll make our priorities decluttering, painting the front door (for a good impression), and then keeping it clean as well as we can with a dog, a cat, and a kid. If we get time to paint the interior doors and finish the baseboards, we will, and we’ll worry about interior paint and door mouldings last.
If there are any other opinions / advice out there, please feel free to share.
That’s absolutely right order. The entrance can stop people cold. And move half your stuff to storage. We put all our stuff into the center of the garage under a huge black plastic painting drop cloth. Figured people knew what an empty garage would look like. Nobody even opened the door except the eventual buyer.
If you can “stage” one room, make it the first one people see. Only good furniture, nothing AT ALL on surfaces except a vase of fake flowers, new throw pillows, and some objets d’art.
I just bought my first starter house, so I can tell you what I saw and thought while looking.
Paint the front door and DECLUTTER. The bigger the place looks the better. (Mine was vacant) Then look at any projects that look unfinished. You don’t need to do all the molding/baseboards in the house, but make sure the rooms that have it are finished. Unless the interior doors are really crappy, or you have no natural light, don’t worry about painting doors. There will always be the people who are horrified that you “painted the wood”, no matter how cheap and crappy it was. And no matter what color you paint, it won’t be the right one.
If we get time to paint the interior doors and finish the baseboards, we will, and we’ll worry about interior paint and door mouldings last.