Preparing your home for sale

I am in the midst of preparing two listing for sale. The sellers of my La Crescenta listing have lived in the home for twenty years and their adult children need to claim their belongings from the garage. Like most listings, the landscape needs some fine tuning. The other home in La Canada is being staged. There is no one size fits all approach to preparing your home for sale.

Last weekend I met a client whose elderly mother is in assisted living. He doesn’t need or want to sell her home for the highest price. His priority is his mother, not her assets. In this instance the home will be cleaned and sold AS IS. This is what works best for his family.

Several weeks ago, I met with another client. Her father passed away and she is the trustee. She and her husband want to sell her father’s home AS IS. This is quite common after a parent has been ill; children often just want to wrap up a quick sale.  I think I convinced her to minimally prepare that home for sale. We will have the home professionally cleaned, unstick a door which won’t open and have the landscape spiffed up. A simple repair to a back door that doesn’t open is money well spent. Having agents and home buyers fighting with the door or having to access the yard another way just calls attention to the fact that the home needs a lot of work. A couple hundred dollars preparing this home for sale is well worth the time and effort.

The most important step in preparing your home for sale is hiring the right Realtor. Once you have engaged the services of an experienced real estate agent, heed their advice. Don’t spend money on fixes which won’t enhance your bottom line. Always, keep the architectural integrity of the home intact. And remember, sometimes when preparing your home for sale, a more conservative approach is best.