Deciding that it’s time to move to a new home is easy.
Prepping your home to be put on the market is the tricky part.
Many questions arise:
Do we need to redo the kitchen?
Do we need to paint the house?
Do we need to change the landscape?
Do we need to re-haul the bathrooms?
Do we need to repave the driveway?
Do we need to fix everything?
It can be overwhelming.
Since it is Leap Day and I have “extra” time, I have put together a to-do list of sorts. With the help of Owners.com, we’re deciding on what needs to be done with our house over the next 6 months before we list it. We’ve lived here for 10 years, so our house is personal to us and it’s comfortable to us. We love so many things about this home, but we also know that a new buyer might prefer some things changed and updated. As many homeowners know, when you first buy a new home, you have the intention to change and update different things in the “years ahead.” Then life happens and you put things on the back-burner because they’re not pressing issues. This is the position we’re in right now.
Owners.com helped us come up with a list of 5 things that we should do over the next 6 months as we prep for sale. We’re calling this our “House Selling Hit List” of things to complete. Perhaps you are in the same boat as we are, looking to list your home in the near future and this list will inspire you or at least make you feel less alone!
- Install a new garage door. When we initially moved into our home, the garage door was barely working. Since we don’t actively use our garage to park our cars in, it never was a huge issue to us, so we let it stay put. Wear and tear has definitely hit our garage door and we knew it was an eye-sore that needed to be updated. We are happy to say that we can check this off the list as Matt and I exchanged “New Garage Door” as our Christmas gift to each other! That’s love.
- Paint the exterior of our house and update the “curb appeal”. We’re very excited to accomplish this task. As you can tell, even the lamp post needs love! Owners.com is going to help us choose a color that will be a happy medium for potential buyers. Leave a comment if you have a color suggestion- we would love to hear!
- New kitchen flooring. This is an update we’ve wanted to do for years, but with little kids, it was always something we kept saying we’d get to. The time has come. We are planning on laying new flooring in the kitchen and hallways surrounding the kitchen.
- Re-facing the cabinets in the kitchen. The kitchen is a hot-spot for potential buyers, so we want to make sure it’s as visually appealing as can be. According to a recent survey by Owners.com, an updated kitchen tops the list of most important features in a potential home, followed closely by a good school district. The kitchen will get a beautiful face-lift with the re-facing of the cabinets already in place.
- Painting the interior rooms. We have always loved bold colors when it comes to the rooms in our home, but not everyone feels the same. Since we want potential buyers to see our house as their next house, we’re planning on painting key rooms of the house in a neutral palette. Chime in with your favorite color recommendations!
We’re ready for the next 6 months as we prep our house to be placed on the market. It’s something that we’re committed to doing and we’re very happy to have the expertise of Owners.com to guide us throughout the process. The best part is that by using Owners.com we will be listing the house for a flat fee of $695, which includes a 12 month listing on the MLS and the help of an expert advisor. This way we can use the commission we would have paid an agent during a traditional transaction, and budget against that for these repairs and updates. When you’re moving a family of 7- every penny counts!
I’m excited to be sharing and updating our progress as we get going!
Stay tuned everyone!
Disclosure: This is a sponsored partnership with Owners.com. All opinions are 100% my own.
