Or actually, the better thought is getting your home ready to SHOW in a competitive real estate market. In today’s market, more than ever, homes for sale in Cary, NC must be in their best showing condition.    Everyone has heard the basic suggestions about getting your home ready to sell.  In our real estate area, Cary, NC, the first thing to do is to make sure your home has good curb appeal.  Clean up the yard, add some flowers and mulch or fresh straw.  Sit in your parked car in front of your house – what can you see?  If you cannot see the windows or doors because of the shrubbery, trim it back.  Do the gutters look full?  Are the windows clean?  Do all of the outside lights (including the floods) have working bulbs?  Just pretend you are the real estate agent driving up with a potential buyer in front of your home.  The next is inside – depersonalize your home.  Pack up the beautiful pictures of your family that will make people focus on your family instead of your home.  Clean out the closets, declutter, make your rooms look more spacious, etc.  Each time a potential buyer opens a closet they should feel a sense or order and calm, not a sense of chaos and overcrowding.

But there are some other, not so well known or recognized, things to do to be ready to show your home.  We have found these to be helpful over the past couple of years:

• Check the air intake grate for your AC unit.  Is the grate dusty?  Do you need a new filter?  Take some time to really look at it.  It not only makes home buyers wonder if your home has been well  maintained, a clogged filter can leave a ‘dusty’ (for lack of a better word) smell when the heat or A/C kicks on.
• Clean your doors, door knobs, and light switch plates.  You don’t see the dirt, because you go in and out of your rooms hundreds of times a day.  It’s not hard to spend a few minutes with a cleaning eraser.  In fact, it is a good project for children to help with.
• Give your blinds a dusting.  We know to keep them open so the home has a bright feeling, but give them a dusting too.
• Remove or box up any prescription medications you don’t need on a daily basis.  These bottles can leave a medicinal smell in your bathroom that you may not be aware of.
• Scrub your bathrooms and leave your shower curtain open half way.  A closed shower curtain shuts off the room and makes it seem smaller.
• Keep any personal items off the counters in the bathroom.  Besides giving your bathroom a cluttered look, you don’t want strangers to be looking at your toothbrush (when was the last time that was changed?).
• Remove any extra rugs from the hardwood floors.  Make the rooms flow together by being able to see the hardwoods.
• Always put out fresh towels before a showing.  Neat and nice.

This is just a small list of the things that you can do to make your home show beautifully so that you can get top dollar for your home investment.   We, at LG Real Estate,  offer more ideas at http://www.caryhomesnc.com/ready.htm.

Our homes in the Cary NC real estate market are known to be at top quality showing condition.  Our fellow real estate agents have a sense of comfort that when they show one of our homes, it will be in top condition. 

What other ideas have worked for you when you listed your home?

Let us know…