The San Diego Real Estate BLOG

Getting Your Home Ready to Sell #4: Interior Basics

Now that exterior of your home has people wondering what the inside looks like, we can be begin discussing the specifics of what you can do to create an inviting interior space.

The interior of the home is where people’s design and decorative choices tend to express themselves to a greater extent, and it is important to state the most basic premise of selling a home:

This isn’t about you, it’s about the potential buyers and their ability to see themselves, and their family, living in the space.

Even if your family owned the home long before you were born, now that you are thinking of selling, the presentation of the home now needs to appeal to the new potential owners, rather than yourself.

Basic is almost always better, so if you have a modestly decorated home, you have probably saved yourself some work now that you are looking to sell. Sparse, cheap, and shoddy are all bad as well, but they tend to an easier fix. On the other hand if you have gone to great lengths to turn the interior of your home into a lush jungle retreat, a tech lovers delight, or a window into 18th Century Victorian England you might have a little bit of work ahead of you. But even if you do have some sort of extreme decorating going on, The Yarbrough Group is here to guide you.

In some cases, if the tone and decor of the home is EXTREMELY specific or pervasive, there may not much to be done but to clean up a bit and wait for a buyer willing to see past it, but in most cases the following tips will put your home’s initial interior impression in the positive category.

DECLUTTER

We cannot stress this enough:

It is easier to sell and completely empty home than a cluttered one.

Here San Diego we have a bit of an immunity to this in that we live in a highly desirable market and many people are willing to look past quite a bit if it means they are able to purchase a home here.

That being said, the difference between you home sitting on the market for weeks vs. selling in a matter of days often comes down to clutter. People are VERY easily overwhelmed by a cluttered home. If the potential buyers can’t see the walls or get a true sense of the size of the rooms because they are filled floor to ceiling with stuff, they are likely to simply move on and make an offer on another home. Buying a home is a daunting proposition in and of itself, if you want your home to sell quickly it is important to make potential buyers see your home as an easy transition for them.

Take a few days and do what needs to be done. Pack as much as you can, take down the nick-knacks, and dust the shelves. Your home will look amazing for showings and open houses, and you get a jump on packing for the move to your new home. Win-win.

Lighten Up

Buyer’s like lots of light, lots of windows (preferably with views), and spacious rooms (even if they only “feel” that way).

A bright, open, airy feeling home will sell much faster than a dark, closed-in one. Full stop.

Have the windows professionally cleaned, and consider changing the curtains to something in a light color and then have them open to allow in the maximum amount of sunlight possible.

Plan Ahead

This is the very spirit of what we are trying to convey.

By reading this BLOG now and taking action BEFORE the busy summer selling season starts you are already way ahead of the game. However, the actual prep work should also begin sooner rather than later. Even if you start too early, you will have the added benefit of being “ahead of the game” once the time to list and sell does roll around.

The first few days and weeks on the market are when your listing will be the “hottest” and receive the vast majority of the traffic it will see. You simply MUST be ready for this before the marketing and showing process begins. Nothing is worse than missing out on a potential buyer and having to wait an unknown amount of time for another one because your home wasn’t ready before it went to market.

We hope you found this list helpful, and be sure to check back next week for the next issue of our Home Selling Preparation BLOG series. If you have any other questions with regards to selling your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us!!!

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