Where to Begin when Selling your Home
So you’re ready to sell? Maybe the house is too small, large or just not what you want. The problem is not with your home, but it just doesn’t fit your family anymore. Something attracted you to it initially, and that something could be just what another family is looking for. But you need to look at your home new as if you were buying it all over again.
Sprucing up the house will leave a great impression on potential buyers. You need to grab attention and create excitement about finding a house that looks and feels well-cared for. Buyers know they’ll encounter fewer problems if they buy a cared for home, which will make it more appealing and stand out from the rest of the market. Preparing your home correctly will save you time on the market!
Looks are not the only thing that will draw potential buyers, but a good first impression makes an impact on a number of levels. A buyer considers how a home feels and smells, how their friends and family will react and how they imagine it would be to live there.
Simple improvements through your house can grab the attention of potential buyers. We’ll help you show them why your house is right for them.
Preparing your Home for Sale
First impressions make all the difference on a buyer’s decision-making process!
Home Styling or Staging is not about decorating, but turning your home into a model to de-emphasize its flaws and appeal to the broadest range of prospective buyers. When your home is on the market it becomes a product. You need to highlight the positives and make people feel like they could live there. The best way is to “neutralize” the surroundings.
REALTOR® Magazine Online has provided these helpful styling tips in their article “Setting the Stage” comprised of the best kept secrets from real estate pros and stagers for things you can do at little to no expense to put a home in prime showing shape.
- Clear out closets and clutter—sellers can give away or pack up toys, linens, and small kitchen appliances to store offsite. Buyers are also forgiving of storage boxes neatly tucked away in a garage or basement.
- Focus most on the most visible areas—the foyer, kitchen, living room, master bedroom, and family room.
- De-personalize the home by removing photos, mementos, and dated items.
- Use plants in colorful pots or inexpensive wicker baskets to fill in empty spaces.
- Look to home catalogs for little details on beautifying the home. For instance, group books, pictures, and objects d’art appealingly on bookcases.
- Try angling one or two pieces of furniture slightly and move furniture 4 inches to 6 inches from the wall to create more interesting room spaces.
- Put away large collections— porcelains, plates, and so on.
- Remove valuables, prescription medicine, collectibles, and breakables.
- Trim trees, prune shrubs, and make sure the lawn is mowed and watered regularly.
- In summer, turn on the sprinklers for five minutes, 30 minutes before the open house. It makes the lawn and driveway sparkle.
- Refrain from cooking anything that leaves a distinctive odor, such as fish, garlic, or cabbage.
- Hire a professional service to clean the home, including the carpets and the windows.
- Set the dining room table with attractive linens, dishes, and stemware.
- Arrange fresh or silk flowers throughout the home.
- Light a fire in the fireplace in fall and winter.
- A mirror in a pretty frame can make a small room feel more open.
- Use as much natural light as possible. Add extra lamps in dark rooms or corners.
- Make functional repairs—fix dripping faucets, sticking doors, and broken fences.
- Bring in another pair of eyes—even if it’s not a professional stylist. The person may see problems you and have missed.
To talk about your real estate goals, call or email us today!
helen@helenoliveri.com
847.967.0022
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Testimonials
Bottom line is she sold our home when I don’t think many others would of as evidence by the other homes for sale in our neighborhood. Bottom line again, Helen and her team are top notch and if your looking to sell or buy I don’t see how you could go wrong choosing her.
Helen is a pleasure to work with. She is very knowledgeable about the current market and gives good and honest advice regarding pricing. She responds to phone calls and email in a very timely way. She has surrounded herself with a great team of professionals and they get the job done! I will recommend her to anyone looking for a great realtor.
Helen knows the real estate marketplace for our area and priced our home at a competitive price for the home to sell quickly. Any questions that I had during the sales process were answered in a timely manner. We had a number of showings on the property due to signs, and the internet postings that Helen provided. From start to completion of the sale of the home, all of the guesswork was handled by Helen and her team, making the process very easy.
The property that Helen listed and sold for us was our 6th home we have sold. Our experience was amazing. Helen is an outstanding broker, and knows her business better than any other realtor we have ever worked with. She is a top producer for a reason. I very highly recommend using Helen Olivieri as your broker/realtor when selling a home. She is outstanding at what she does.
Helen was great during the whole sale process. Every time I would call she would pick up ready to talk about anything. I have never experienced this level of service from a real estate agent. Helen is also very honest, she knows what needs to get done to sell a home. Our home was sold after 8 days of being on the market, even with being an interior town home unit which are not in high demand right now. Want your home SOLD? Talk to Helen. Thanks Helen!
We had made the mistake of first signing with another team…..their claims being much the same as yours. What we learned was claims are one thing, but living up to them is another thing altogether. That experience made us even more “gun shy” of your claims of service and attention. You lived up to and went beyond every claim. Your work ethics and attention to detail inspired us to ask if we could put this letter together.
Helen marketed my property quite well in that she sold my house in 30 days. Unlike other agents I spoke with or have dealt with in the past Helen focused on the positive aspects of my house and marketed to those strengths instead of dwelling on all the things I had to do to make my house more marketable. Obviously that paid off for me. I would strongly recommend the Helen Oliveri team to anyone wishing to sell their house.
From the moment we met Helen we knew that buying our new condo was going to be a wonderful experience. Helen Oliveri and her team rendered the usually painful process of home buying as stress free as possible. Working with Helen wound up being what she and her entire team always says, “My pleasure!” At the end of the day we give Helen and her team a qualified and enthusiastic “rave” review.
Thank you so much for all your help in selling our home. We have had a fantastic experience with you! We are still in shock that you sold our home before the sign was put in the yard!!What a pleasure it has been to receive “play by play” communication. We felt secure & well-informed each step of the way. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Helen and the team are a selling machine!! If you looking for someone with a high level of integrity, who provides an honest assessment of how to get your house sold then look no further. High energy coupled with superior professionalism and great service. What more could you ask for? We went with a different realtor to start. After 90 days of little or no activity we switched to Helen. Our house sold in a couple days!! Thanks very much to Helen and her team!