Open House Checklist for Selling Your House

When it comes to selling your house, open houses are an excellent tool for exposing a home to prospective buyers.

To ensure you make the most of this excellent home sales tool, here are a few things to consider:

Cleanliness Rules
If your house isn’t clean, why bother having an open house? Because buying a property is largely an emotional transaction, you wouldn’t want to distract your leads with a dirty sink, grimy toilet or dusty surface. In other words, before an open house or house showing, clean like you've never cleaned before!

Clutter be Gone
Extra items on countertops or unnecessary pieces of furniture should go for the entire sales process. The art of home selling seeks to position one’s house in its most spacious and positive light, so consider putting knick-knacks in a storage locker or at a family member or friend’s place.

Let there be Light
Let the natural light shine in. Light makes people happy.  To make your open house guests as happy as possible, open curtains and turn on every available light. Also make sure your windows are clean and sparkling so that the daylight can fill the space.

Set the Mood
Ambiance is a huge factor in triggering a buyer’s “buy-me” response. Therefore, appeal to their senses by cleaning, de-cluttering, putting on appropriate background music for the home or condo’s target market and making the property smell good. Some sellers swear by baking a batch of cookies or bread right before a showing or open house. Whatever you do, don’t distract people by any of these mood-setting tactics, they are there to support your open house, not take away from it.

Is it Hot?
Does your place look its best from the outside in? Do you need to make any minor exterior improvements or plant a few flowers, trim a bush or mow the lawn? You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.  Make sure your curb appeal is, well, appealing.

Don’t Slack on Home Improvements
Go for fresh. Do you need to redo your paint in a tasteful neutral tone, finish any unfinished jobs, hide unruly wires or repair a leaky faucet? Make sure all these little fix-ups are done before your house is on display.  Any incomplete or unfinished work makes buyers nervous.

Personals
Many feel that personal items like a collage of family pictures, etc… can distract from a buyers’ impression of a space. In addition, do you really want a bunch of strangers seeing your family in their disco days?

Hide the Family Jewels
Although the goal of open houses is to attract qualified leads, sometimes others take the tour. So that nobody is tempted to sneak a peak or lift any of your valuables make sure they are out of sight and stored in a secure area.

Dot your i’s and cross your t’s
Once you've accomplished all of the above-mentioned tasks, go through your place one more time and double check.  With some many items to think about, having a pre-open house system is always a great plan.