Buying a house is a major step in our lives. Selling a house is the next major step!
As you pack things up and get ready to move into your new home, it is important to leave your former home in its best possible condition. This is because home buyers will often hire home inspectors to survey the inside and outside of their new home, making sure there are no surprises or issues waiting for them.
Home inspectors examine every nook and cranny of homes according to strict criteria and schemes, many of which will differ from region to region. They will look at everything from the foundation to the tip-top of the roof and everything in between.
We have 7 tips for home sellers like you that will help leave your old home in its best possible selling condition.
Make the house easy to move around in
Home inspectors may come knocking on your door whilst you are in the process of moving. That is completely fine just as long as you allow for your corridors, rooms, and the other spaces in your home clutter free and easy to move around in.
Inevitably, you will have moving boxes and furniture organised in certain parts of the home. Do your best to compactly and smartly organise these bulky items. You do not want the home inspector to have to perform any athletic movements just to get from room to room. Your house can still be tidy and open despite having moving boxes and goods places around here and there.
Tidy the yard
While you should not judge anything by its exterior, in the case of selling your home and making a good impression on the home inspector, it pays to invest some time and sweat into your outdoor spaces. Keeping shrubs and trees nicely trimmed, the grass watered and cut, and gardens and fencing well maintained will make your home pop.
Clean up!
When the outdoor spaces are clean and tidied, it’s time to really scrub and dust the inside spaces. While you may regularly swept, mopped, scrubbed, and dusted your home, furniture, and appliances, you can expect some exceptionally dusty and grimy areas to be revealed when everything is moved out of your house. Put in the muscle and get rid of mold and grease from those hard-to-reach places. The last thing you want the home inspector to find stains or a pile of dust that could have been easily removed.
Check the roof
Home inspectors check the roofs of houses, so be sure that yours is cleaned and that there are no damages done to any part of it. This involves cleaning out the gutters, removing moss, replacing damaged shingles or bricks, and retrieving those footballs or frisbees left stranded up there.
Replace light bulbs and batteries in fire alarms
The details count in the home inspection. Replacing light bulbs all throughout the house will gain your positive points from the home inspector. Even if you think that a certain light bulb has a bit of life left in it, go ahead and replace them (and with energy efficient ones while you are at it). To help your home really shine, turn on all the lights in the house when the home inspector comes. The brightness of the rooms makes them appear spacier and cleaner.
While you are at it, replace the batteries in all the fire alarms.
And replace the filters, too
Do the next home owners a favour and replace the air filters of your heating and cooling systems through the home. You can do this yourself or have a service technician come to do it. You do not want to cough up points from the final inspection score because of dirty air filters.
Check the toilets and showers
The throne rooms of the home should be pristine. Toilets and showers that are shiny and working properly are a must not only for homeowners, but also for home inspectors. Go ahead and hire a professional cleaning service for this job if you think it will require heavy duty detergents and plumbing work to succeed.