7 Essential Tips to Get Your Home Ready to Sell

3. Up your curb appeal

When it comes to exterior upgrades, the experts agree that simple is best. Think a trimmed lawn and tidy bushes. “Less is truly more,” says Mary Kay Buysse, co-executive director of the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers. “It is better to have nothing under a set of windows than to have overgrown, out-of-control shrubs.”

Lewis’ curb-appeal checklist includes power-washing the exterior, clearing the driveway and tucking away trash and recycling bins. If you have patio furniture or a firepit, DeMorrow advises setting them up as if you’re about to entertain.

As for finishing touches? A pot of flowers on the front porch will do just fine, Buysse says. (For wintertime sellers, DeMorrow recommends a bucket of holly branches and pine boughs instead of blossoms.)

4. Declutter (for good)

Selling means moving, which means it’s time to declutter — particularly if you’re downsizing. “You don’t want to have to go through the same room or the same drawer three times,” Buysse says. “You want to do it once and done.”

To declutter methodically, Buysse recommends taking a room-by-room inventory. Start in spaces with the least emotion attached to them, and earmark every item as a keep, toss or donate. “We say, ‘No maybes,’ ” Buysse explains, because the “maybe” pile often sits indefinitely in a storage unit with a hefty monthly fee.

5. Depersonalize

Whether or not you’re working with a professional home stager (more on that below), the experts say depersonalizing is key to helping buyers visualize themselves in a new space. In listing photos and at open houses, you’ll want to tone down taste-specific or overly personal decor and design elements such as your prized Frisbee collection or lime-green accent wall — and be sure to stash Fido’s food bowls and personal effects such as toothbrushes out of sight.

“You don’t want to be easily categorized as the place with the ...,” Lewis says — the house with the fish smell, for example, or the house with the tchotchkes. “The goal is to show your home in a way that makes people consider living there.”

6. Stage for success

Like depersonalization, staging involves arranging furniture and decor to appeal to buyers and showcase the property’s best attributes in order to up your final sale price or sell more quickly, which lowers carrying costs.

Although home improvement shows popularized the idea that staging requires filling an empty house with rented furniture, DeMorrow says that’s rarely the case. Instead, she focuses on “occupied staging,” which involves rearranging and repurposing furniture and decor while sellers continue to live in the home. Another option is a virtual or in-person walk-through with a stager who will provide recommendations, leaving you to do the rest.

7. Don’t fear the experts

Though many projects are DIY-friendly, working with a professional real estate agent, home stager or move specialist not only makes preparing your home for sale easier, it also expands your circle of support. Experts typically have a network of other trusted professionals — everyone from electricians to estate planners — who can address a range of maintenance and logistical needs as they arise.

Also important: seeking out credentialed pros. Certified Realtors, for example, adhere to a code of ethics and are required to undergo training every three years. The National Association of Realtors offers a Seniors Real Estate Specialist designation for agents who specialize in helping older adults buy, sell and relocate.

“The professionals do this day in, day out,” Lewis says. “This is all we obsess about: how to extract the most value from a property to make our clients — the sellers — happy.”