When getting ready to stage your home for a quick sale in Calgary, you have to compete like a pro, and that means cleaning your home and keeping it clean throughout the sale!

I remember going and looking at homes last year ahead of our move, and I was shocked to see the state of most homes when we arrived to view them. Having dirty clothes, especially underwear on the floor is a huge turnoff, as is pet mess and general grubbiness. It’s like trying to sell someone your dirt. If they don’t trust you to clean your home for their viewing, they will not trust you to clean it before you move out. And selling is often about perception and trust. You want people to trust that the home you are selling to them is worth it, don’t you?

 

SO WHERE DO I START?

First of all, if it is within your budget, hire a cleaning company to do a deep clean of your home. Also, hire a carpet cleaning company to both clean and renew the look of your carpets in the home.

If you don’t have the budget to hire a cleaning or rug cleaning company, then get ready to invest the time and effort to do it yourself with our handy tips below.

Front of the home and yards

Make sure the paint on your front door is not scratched up, looking old and faded or full of cobwebs. Sweep away any leaves, freshen up your garden beds, get rid of all weeds, prune shrubs and keep that grass cut. The front of your home is the ‘face’ of your home, so make sure you have it looking polished, presentable and ready for sale. No kid toys lying all over the place, garden tools, or old branches laying about.

Bathrooms

Start with your bathrooms. Scrub the toilets, polish the mirrors, clean and sanitize the countertops. The bathrooms should be the cleanest looking rooms in the house after the kitchen. Remove floor mats. Put out your best towels, or better yet, buy new towels. Think of what a hotel bathroom looks like. You would not want to stay in a hotel with a dirty bathroom, would you? Neither do your buyers. So make sure shower curtains look nice and are clean too. No cheap plastic shower curtains, no stained towels. Nice soap dispensers, not the cheap plastic ones it came in from the store. Keep a small garbage can under the sink while selling–no one needs to see or smell your garbage while selling and a smelly garbabe bin can be a huge turnoff. Put the toilet scrub brush or any plunger under the sink–you don’t need these in your MLS photos, and they don’t contribute to the home while selling. Put away all your toiletries, toothbrushes and hairbrushes. No one needs to see your hair on display, or what type of toothpaste you use. Less is more when selling.

Kitchens

In your kitchen, make sure you are doing your dishes after every meal, loading it into the dishwasher. Dirty dishes in the sink is not the look you want when selling, and no one needs to see what you ate for breakfast on them. Dirty dishes and sinks smell, and your kitchen should never smell anything but clean. Don’t worry about making your home smell like fresh bread or cookies–no one does that anymore, it is too obvious, and the best smell is always a clean and fresh air smell when selling your home. Open the windows; Calgary properties and homes can get very dry, dusty and stale smelling. Let fresh air in at least once a day. Put away toasters, knife blocks, paper towel holders. These do not help your sale. Clean out your fridge and your stove–this is important, as people expect to buy your appliances, so these have to be very clean and tidy too.

Bedrooms

Put all of your laundry in a laundry hamper, and keep the hamper in a closet, not on display. Laundry hampers are not decor, so put these away. Make sure your bedding is clean, fresh-smelling and ironed, not wrinkly. Prop up your pillows, invest in a new bedding set if yours is not looking up to date, or looks like grandma’s bedding. The master bedroom is the most important bedroom in the house. Absolutely no clutter, pick up everything off of the floor and don’t have too much furniture in any bedroom. Dust, spruce up the rooms, make them inviting, not cluttered, not too small. Have nice window coverings–no broken blinds, curtains that match etc.

Mud Rooms

Only a minimal amount of shoes/boots in this area. The same goes for coats. Make sure the floors are clean and that no one is tripping over your footwear.

Basements

We all know a lot of the things we are getting ready to move end up in the basement, but do this in one area only, and as neatly as possible. Check your basement does not smell of damp or mustiness. Vacuum any carpets down here, or vacuum up any dust if the basement is unfinished.

Why Making An Effort For Viewings And MLS Photos Is Like A First Date

Paying attention to how clean and tidy your home says a lot about ourselves when selling. Think of the sale of your home like dating. Every seller is like a potential partner; you would make the effort to look nice for a date, and the buyers who come to your home should feel like we have made an effort to impress them too. There is a reason why show homes are so impressive. They are clean, polished and look like they have put the work in for the sale. Our resale homes will benefit from this effort too.

When we make an effort on how we present our house, we make the buyers feel valued for making the time to come out and view our homes. And this leads to faster sales. Take the time to clean your home, freshen it up and make it inviting for those viewers who have taken time out of their busy day to see your house!

Happy Home Selling!

Monique Shaw is Lead Designer of Homes Beautifully an award-winning property stylist, interior designer, and home stager as seen on television on CTV and Global. She and her team are available for home staging consultations in the Calgary, Cochrane, and Airdrie areas. Call 403-926-4603 to book your home staging consultation in Calgary today!