Preparing Your Home for Sale: 3 Affordable Details that Can Make a Big Difference
Contributed By: Louie Martini
There’s no question that the current and most recent state of the housing market has been red hot. Depending on your location, homes and properties have been known to sell for well above initial asking prices and sometimes in all cash payments no less. Some home owners have seen their properties listed for less than 24 hours before getting bombarded with potential buyers. It’s been quite a sight to see!
If you’ve thought about listing your property for sale, there are a number of things to consider when it comes to preparing your home to be listed for all the public to see. Unsurprisingly, there are a number of in-depth articles and posts already written to help you check off the boxes in preparation for this big step. A simple Google search will turn up dozens of articles advising you to clean up clutter, detach emotion from the home and perform any necessary repairs such as fixing leaks, cracks, wall patches and more. Whether you DIY or hire a professional, there are usually a handful of necessary fixes that need to happen that are either contingent of the sale or just help with overall aesthetics.
While all of those things are relatively important to consider, this post is coming from a more detailed perspective. I’ve been in countless homes throughout my contracting career and have spoken with a number of homeowners (both longtime and newbies!) They each bring a unique perspective when it comes to things that catch a potential buyer’s eye while walking a listed property. Let’s take a look at 3 really affordable details that can make a big difference when preparing your home for sale.
1. Light Switch Plates and Outlet Wall Plates
This is about as basic as it gets. You may be wondering to yourself, “What in the world do switch plates and outlet plates have to do with getting my house ready for sale?” Well, the short answer is “a lot.” If you own a more modern home or relatively new construction, this may not apply to you. However, if you own an older home that has been under renovation at one point or another, chances are this is something to take note of. Have you ever noticed how dirty your light switch plates can get? I mean, you touch them just about every day and probably dozens of times per day for that matter. If they haven’t been scrubbed down in awhile, they may show signs of wear in the form of dirt, grease, paint, etc.
Not only that, let’s say different rooms in your house have been updated, but others haven’t (i.e. a full kitchen or bathroom remodel.) Unless you, or the contractor you hired to do the job, have good attention to detail, there’s a chance that your light switch and outlet plates don’t match the ones in the rest of the house. They could be plastic where the originals are metal or they could be a different color altogether. This may seem insignificant, but it actually plays a major role psychologically when a buyer walks from room to room at an open house.
The listed home could be valued at $500,000, but if the switch and outlet plates are hodgepodge or mismatched from room to room (or even in the same room), best believe a buyer will notice. It may not be a dealbreaker, per se, but it does convey a message to the buyer that could concern them about the things in the home that they aren’t able to see. I’ve heard it straight from the mouth of a new homeowner, “It wasn’t a huge deal when I first noticed the mismatched plates. Though, it did make me wonder about what could possibly be going on behind the walls that I couldn’t even see. If no one cared to match the wall plates, did they care when they rewired the electric or moved a gas line?”
If this inspires you to walk your home and check out your wall plates, feel free to take a minute and do some investigation. Depending on your home’s price range, this is a relatively affordable fix that can put potential buyers at ease. Light switch plates and outlet plates run anywhere from $0.60-$0.70/plate for the typical white, plastic version. Let’s say your home has a total of 50 switches and plates combined. That’s a whopping $35 to make them all the same. Again, not a deal breaker by any means, but certainly a small investment that can go a long way in a buyer’s mind.
2. Door Knobs/Handles and Hinges
This is another one that can be a quick and affordable way to convey trust to a buyer. Just like wall plates, door knobs and handles are high touch spots in any home. They can collect just as much dirt, grease and paint over time to show signs of wear. If each room in your home has its own themes and color schemes, maybe the worn out or mismatched door knobs can be a selling point (just kidding LOL.)
Again, this is a detail that most potential buyers will be quick to notice. For ones that are handy and willing to do some work post sale, this may not be an issue. However, for the ones that can’t justify a high price tag for the home that has mismatched door hardware, you may be driving them and their wallets to look elsewhere.
For similar reasons mentioned in Tip #1, new (or at least matching) door knobs and hinges can go a long way in a buyer’s mind. If you check out a big box hardware store or your favorite online retailer, most door knobs and handles are sold in contractor’s packs. For about $75, you can pick up 10 interior door knob sets and really show buyers that attention to detail was placed throughout the home when prepping it for sale.
3. Paint Touch Up
Now, here’s one that you’ve definitely heard before. “Fresh paint and carpet” is the old school phrase likened to putting lipstick on a pig. Silly as it may sound, paint can really do wonders in transforming the overall look and feel of a room. It can also effectively cover marks and blemishes in the wall from years of moving furniture and hanging photos all over the place.
“Not that wall, I said the other wall,”- my wife when I hang a photo on the wall she pointed to 5 minutes earlier.
All jokes aside, painting an entire room is a great idea, but for the sake of affordability and thinking outside of the box, this tip is specifically geared towards painting trim and casing. Just like Tips #1 and #2, door/window casing and wall trim like baseboard can really take a beating over the course of their life. Regardless of the profile or style, if you have traditional finger jointed trim in your home, chances are its painted with a semi or high gloss white finish. Depending on the size and amount of trim in your home (crown, baseboard, door/window casing), this is a relatively affordable tip in prepping your house for sale. For a gallon of standard semi-gloss paint and an angled 2 ½” paint brush, you’re looking at about $50, a steady hand and a little patience to bring that tired millwork back to life! Even without painting every wall in the house, that pop of white on the trim can really catch a buyer’s eye. It’s a small detail that can make a world of difference.
There you have it! 3 affordable tips to consider when listing your home for sale. Even better, they’re things that don’t require expensive tools and that you may feel comfortable taking a shot at yourself. Not to say that these tips will be the driving factor in getting your home sold, but at the very least, it can keep questions from being raised in a buyer’s mind. It’s better for a buyer to not even notice the new wall plates, door knobs and freshly painted trim than for any of those to be a reason they decide to walk away from a sale.
For a more comprehensive look into preparing your home for sale, keep an eye out for future blogs and posts!
*Thank you for visiting the BHC Blog. Feel free to send me a message with any questions you may have regarding this article.*
