Open houses sell homes so be open to having an open house. I know it's a pain to have to leave for a few hours but its worth it.
Make sure your home is CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN.
Make sure your home is clutter free. Neat and tidy. I cannot express this enough. You do not want potential buyers to be distracted with all your crap and you don't want your personal belongings to block what the buyers are trying to decide if they will buy or not. This is a big expense for them and you need to let them see as much of the room as possible, not your things.
Get all that stuff off the counters. Grab a bin and keep it in a bin until you move. Set in on the counter until time for a showing or open house and then just tuck that bin with your counter top items away.
Organize your closet so they can see the actual closet, the rod, the shelves, the floor!
Corners? Yes, potential buyers want to be able to see the corners of your rooms. Make sure hey can see baseboards and all of the outlets possible.
Empty all of the trash cans and put in nice clean new white trash bags.
If you have pets be sure to take them out of the house with you or put them in a crate. Hide the litter box completely!! If you can't hide it, empty it, wash it out and stick it under the bed or take it with you.
Mow the yard, pull the weeds and trim the bushes. Do you want to sell this house or not?
Put all of the toilet seats DOWN. And if you have one with a crack, please replace it before the first showing. Repair anything broken. I cannot tell you how off putting it is to see a cracked toilet seat, commode lid, broken rod in the closet or cracked window. Do the repairs. Eat the costs.
Odors? Odors are a no no. Your home really should not smell like anything but please do not let it smell like urine, litterboxes or wet dogs. Get an air purifier if you need to, or two or three.
Clean up the poop out of the back yard if you have a dog.
Buyers will often look under sinks. Clean those areas up.
One of the worse open houses I went to was this beautiful upscale home ($600,000). The homeowners who left in one of their vehicles left the other vehicle blocking the sidewalk to the front door. No sidewalk or path up the steep hill to the front door via the front door. They had the front yard landscaped with large river rock. Nearly broke my ankle getting up the hill to the door and I watched many people just leave without going in because the women were wearing heels. Upon entering the front door the first thing you see, there, on the floor in the foyer was a litterbox! With poop and pee in it no less. So while distracted by that, nobody looked at the beautiful large foyer or the chandelier. In the master bedroom there was a load of DIRTY laundry on the bed next to a half filled laundry basket. Ladies dirty panties right on top. Really gross. A cat was running lose and people were afraid to open the back door to look at the patio and backyard, asking, "is it ok if the cat gets out? or not?" Instead of looking at the house we all had to worry about the cat. The cat should have been crated. There were dirty dishes in the sink so we could not see the sink. There was so much wrong with this open house that never should have happened.
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