From the minute you meet with your real estate agent, they will start offering tips to get your house in shape for a quick sale.  There are all sorts of staging tips, design elements, and general rules to follow but below should be considered the minimum.

  1. Clean everything inside your house. If the house is empty, concentrate on the floors and the walls, especially light switches.  Buyers and their real estate agents are trying to get a sense of who lived in the home and how they maintained it.  The reason is simple:  If you didn’t take care of the property over the years, there will be additional maintenance costs in the future.
  2. Wash the windows. Washing the windows makes a huge difference in the cleanliness of your home.  Buyers are looking through the windows to see the yard.  When they see grime and filth all over the windows, it shows that the seller doesn’t care about the property.  Also, you tend to get a better light when the windows are cleaned. 
  3. Clean out the gutters. When buyers see leaves coming out of your gutters, they know that you haven’t taken care of the property for some time.  Cleaning gutters is relatively cheap even if you need someone else to do it. 
  4. Clear out old flower beds. Good curb appeal is important.  I’ve seen homes that didn’t sell at the number they should have simply because the pictures weren’t as good as when you saw it in person.  In the winter, it’s almost impossible to plant new, so at least get rid of the leaves and overgrowth that take away from the yard. 

These are 4 simple things that can be done either by yourself or for minimal $$ that really improve the chances of a quick sale.  Remember, you want people to feel like they want to live in the house, not scare them off. If your house isn’t selling, these cleaning tips are useful when re positioning the house for sale as well.