Andrew Lamb Prepping The Home For Sale

Hey, it's Andrew Lam. Thank you for joining us. On our blog again today we're talking about how to prepare your home to sell. So today we're talking about how to prepare your home to sell. I get calls from home sellers all the time asking what, what repairs need to be done, if they need to get certain inspections beforehand, just what that process looks like. Whether they are selling an investment property or their own personal home. The same questions keep coming up. So I thought it would be good to make a video about how to properly prepare your home to sell and specifically what four items give you the best bang for your buck. So the first thing, that number one thing is going to be your choice of paint color. If you are in a home that's a bit older and it's dated with paint that really hasn't been changed since maybe the 90s, you might want to look into making your paint color something that is a bit more trendy and hot today. Today that's going to be kind of a light gray or a grayish, a mix of gray and brown. And we're seeing that work really well to give a modern, clean look inside of homes and a great return. Number two is going to be flooring. If you have cracked or chipped tile floors or anything that looks like it's from the 80s or 90s, it's probably time to upgrade to some kind of laminate or luxury vinyl plank. That's what we would recommend. You're going to get a better bang for your buck, probably on a laminate that is waterproof. That's a newer product, but it looks just like hardwood. It stands up better than, is more durable than hardwood, but it's pretty affordable and easy to install because they just click together. So it's something you can do as a DIY project or you can hire a contractor very affordably. Number three is going to be decluttering. Depersonalization really allows people to come into the home and feel like they can make it their own. So if you have a wall full of family photos or just, you know, images from, from around the world, I've seen people have images from their travels and, and that. But if it's literally blocking off an entire wall, it's time to declutter and depersonalize. This also means if you have just tons of furniture inside of a room to really start to look at what, what's necessary and what's there just for decor purposes, because what we're looking for is for very clean lines. If you're walking into a Room to feel like there's space to walk around or envision your own furniture there. If you have filled the room full of furniture, it's hard for anyone else to imagine their things, their belongings in that home. And number four is going to be professional cleaning. Getting someone to really deep clean your home is huge. Even when it comes down to, you know, cleaning the grout, scrubbing the baseboards. Those are things that often get overlooked when we're cleaning our homes or just throughout, you know, daily life and the grind, especially after shelter in place and. And everything with coronavirus, being home, homeschooling, working from school, if you have. If you work from home and you are now taking care of your child's school schooling needs from home. So it's nice to have someone else come in and really deep clean that home to make sure, number one, that it's free of any potential coronavirus, but also just to make sure that it shows really well with photos and with people coming and seeing the home. So we still have showings. They are by appointment. And as we start to open up a bit more, we are probably going to see more showings. We have limited inventory, but that doesn't. That hasn't stopped people from going and buying homes. It's more. Been an incredible market. So just making sure it's ready and that it's clean can really make sure that it shines, literally and figuratively, when potential home buyers are coming to take a look. So those are the four things that we really recommend that you do. Paint floors, depersonalizing and decluttering, and then getting professional cleaning. And all of which can actually be done for a very affordable price. But I recommend getting your realtor involved in the process to make sure that any of these are necessary. There are times where a home as is will sell for just as much as a home that is remodeled. And it really depends on the comparable sales in the area. So we'll take a look at that. We'll let you know what you should do, what you shouldn't do, what's a waste of money. And we had a great example of this with a property that we actually helped our clients fix the home up. We paid, we, you know, arranged the whole project, managed everything, brought in the contractors, chose the paint color, chose the flooring, and got them new countertops as well. They had 1980s countertops and, you know, tile and just this old dated look. So at the end of the day, we were able to completely give their home a new look. And it sold for 35,000 more. Than the similar home across the street had sold for just a few months prior. So you really can have a good bang for your buck but I recommend always run it by your realtor first and get them involved in the process from the very beginning so you're not investing in things like landscaping or items that really aren't going to give you a bang for your buck. Often I've seen people come in to a home with brand new landscaping and they don't they don't like it so they completely redo it again and it was money wasted so get your realtor involved at the beginning. If you guys have any questions or comments about this process. If you'd like to know what work needs to get done in your home to get the best bang for the buck and the highest price on the market and also how to make sure it appraises after you do that work feel free to reach out or just reply or leave a comment below. Thanks Sam.