How to Present Your House for Sale While on a Tight Budget

Are you trying to prepare your house for sale, but have no idea how to do it while on a tight budget? Here’s how to present your house for sale, cheaply.

Making your house look as good as possible can be critical to getting top dollar in a sale. In today’s competitive marketplace, you want your residence to be showcased in the best possible light. With national house sales slowing, you need to do all you can to move your real estate product.

Some people can invest thousands of dollars to ready their home for sale. But that can be hard if you’re on a tight budget.

While a new roof or appliances are very attractive selling points, not everyone can make these investments when they are trying to sell their home. However, there are a few less costly ways to boost your house’s appeal to buyers without breaking the bank.

Here are seven tips on how to present your house for sale while staying within a budget.

1. Declutter!

Marie Kondo has popularized the concept of decluttering and living with minimal “stuff”. Besides the practical benefit of cleaning out your house before you move, getting rid of crumbling children’s drawings, unread newspapers, and outgrown clothes is an important way to prepare your house for sale.

No one wants to see your old trinket collections or posters of ancient rock bands. Even your grandmother’s precious china dolls should be put away. A prospective buyer wants to project their own objects and lifestyle onto a blank slate.

Put away your important papers, family photographs, and souvenirs. Hold a garage sale. If you cannot bear to part with some items forever, you can rent a storage space to put everything away for a few months while you stage your house.

2. Mow the Lawn

Realtors talk about “curb appeal.” If the prospective buyer doesn’t like the look of the house from the outside, they may never get out of the car to inspect the interior.

So what can you do? Mow the lawn. Trim the hedges. Sweep the front walk and plant some daffodils along the front stoop. Make sure all of the debris from autumn is swept up and carried away.

If any trees are sickly or have dangerously overhanging branches, chop them down. Take down the rusty old swing set.

An unkempt lawn is one of the biggest mistakes sellers make when they are trying to market their home. Keeping your landscaping in tip-top condition is one of the least expensive ways to help make your house more appealing to buyers.

3. A Fresh Coat of Paint

It can be expensive to get your house painted entirely, but it’s not too hard or expensive to freshen up a room with a fresh coat.

Maybe your mudroom is covered with dirty fingerprints. Maybe the trim around the fireplace in the living room is ashy and dingy.

Take a paintbrush and brighten up spots in your house that are a little worse for wear. You don’t have to be a professional, but you do have to avoid splatter and mess.

If one of your rooms is painted an untraditional color like bright purple or black, you may want to repaint it with a more neutral palette so you don’t scare off buyers with more conservative taste.

Apparently, a black or charcoal-colored front door can make the difference of thousands of dollars in a final sales price!

4. Fix Up the Porch

Like the yard, your front porch is your chance to make a great first impression on a potential buyer.

Spend a few bucks on a cheerful welcome mat if yours has seen better days. Spruce up the front door with a bright shiny door knocker. Make sure the porch light is sparkly clean and the light bulb works.

You may even want to add a planter filled with bright geraniums or other flowers to make the area especially attractive.

5. Check All the Light Bulbs

Buyers pay attention to big items like appliances, which can be costly to replace when you are moving soon anyway. They also like seeing recent renovations, which is another project which may be too much for you to take on right now.

However, buyers are influenced by tiny details as well. If they flick on the light switch and nothing happens, it looks like things in the house are neglected or don’t work.

Make sure all the light bulbs are new and the appropriate voltage. Make sure that plugs work and faucets are not dripping.

The small details can be important as the big ones when you are getting ready to present your house to prospective buyers.

6. Fresh Flowers or Fruit in the Main Rooms

Top realtors advise that you should try to appeal to all the senses when you sell your house. That means your house must not just look nice, but it should also smell good and feel comfortable as well.

A common trick is baking cookies before a showing to let a homey, delicious smell linger in the house. A bowl of flowers or fruit also conveys a feeling of comfort, in addition to looking beautiful and smelling nice.

Like colors and decor, keep the smells subtle. Not everyone may appreciate the aroma of freshly cooked chili. A soft candle scent of white linen or the perfume from some newly cut roses is all you need to gently leave a hospitable impression.

7. Professional Cleaning

Getting your house cleaned is one of the most important components to getting it ready to show. You may be able to save money by doing it yourself, provided you can deep clean intensively and remove all traces of mold, dust, and grime.

If you have pets, you may want to invest in a professional cleaning service to get rid of any fur – some buyers may have allergies. Dog or cat odors can be a real turn off, even to animal lovers.

Make sure you clean under beds, in drawers, and in the basement. Sweep out the attic and closets to get rid of all the dust bunnies. Scrub the windows until they shine.

The look of a spotless home in addition to the clean smell can serve as further enticements to buyers.

How to Present Your House for Sale When You Don’t Have a Big Budget

If you are wondering how to present your house for sale when you cannot afford to spend a fortune, don’t worry. With a little elbow grease and some help from your friends and family, there is a lot you can do to make it sales worthy.

From cleaning up the yard to making sure everything works properly to throwing out the junk and arranging fresh flowers all around, anyone can showcase their home so it looks like a place where others would want to live.

Click here for more helpful information if you are thinking of selling your home.