Selling your home? Here’s what you can do to prepare

SALT LAKE CITY — Are you thinking of selling your home in the spring or summer?

Preparing your home

Because there’s a lot to think about during the preparation stage, Faucette said it’s almost like a second job. To start, you can declutter and depersonalize the interior of your home. Remove the scuffs on the walls, clear out the bathroom cabinets and drawers, and wipe everything down.

If you have nail holes on the walls, Faucette said it’s better to just spackle them and wipe them down, unless you plan on matching the color of the paint.

“The nice thing is [that] most people actually are going to get the best amount of return from elbow grease, not by going in and ripping out kitchen cabinets or bathrooms. The things that turn buyers away is when they go in and the home’s dirty, or it smells, or the yard hasn’t been taken care of.”

While it’s essential to clean up inside the home, that doesn’t mean you should neglect what’s outside. Taking care of the yard is necessary because that’s what most people will see first.

“A lot of people will drive by homes before they actually go tour them inside,” Faucette said. “And so you want to make sure that you’ve taken some time, put some plants out, put the fresh bark down, and make the outside attractive so that they want to come inside.”

If you plan on selling your home, take a look at a couple of builder models. According to Faucette, builder models are the gold standard of what you want your home to look like.

Selling your home

Once you’re done preparing your home, the next step is to think of a price. The key here is to price your home so that it will be sold within two weeks.

“Our studies have shown about the first two weeks is when you’re going to get top dollar. It’s not like you sit for 30 days and then, all of a sudden, there’s a rush on your home,” Faucette said. “And so you want to price it and prepare it to be able to sell in those first two weeks because that’s when you’re going to get top dollar.”

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