Barbara Sondgerath

859-630-3696

Working hard to make it easy for you!

from Buying, Owning, and Selling Your Home

Introduction
Curb Appeal
Tidy Up
Kitchen and Bath Appeal
Little Details
Plant a Picture
Show and Tell

Introduction
If little things mean a lot in matters of the heart, they mean even more when you're trying to sell your house.  The way you present your property to  prospective buyers can make all the difference between success and failure.  Intangibles often help a sale - the way the light reflects off a gleaming oak table in a bay window can make buyers realize what they  wanted all along was a house with a bay window in the kitchen.

Without investing in expensive and time consuming renovations and redecorating projects, it's still possible to show your home to its very best advantage.  There are a lot of easy, inexpensive ways to put a shine on it and enhace its overall desirability.  Here are some easy to-do suggestions.

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Curb Appeal
This is the impression buyers get when they first drive up to your house, and that first look is all important.  If prospective buyers don't find our house appealing, they won't be interested in seeing what's inside.

How can you turn that initial impression into love at first sight?  Trimmed shrubbery and mowed lawns are as important as windows so clean they positively sparkle.  If your house could use a paint job and  you don't have the time or money to do it right away, sometimes repainting the trim will update the entire facade.  Or, try painting just the side that can be seen from the street.

You don't want to lead your buyers up the garden path but you do want to get them to the front door, so the walkway should be as attractive as possible.  Seasonal plantings can do a lot ot zip up the look of the approach and, even if you're not an enthusiastic gardener, it's not difficult to add a row of annuals on each side of the walkway.

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Tidy Up
Everyone knows,of course, that neatness counts, both inside and out.  Gardening equipment and tools should be put away and hoses neatly coiled.  It's  also helpful to park your cars in your garage or somewhere down the street rather than leaving them in the driveway.

If someone in the family is working on a car, a bike, or boat outside, this is the time to be ruthless.  Insist that it has to go out of sight, or off the property.

Remember, buyers are going to be looking closely at your front door, so it ought to be clean, freshly painted and oiled so it swings smoothly.  Brass or metal doorknobs should be polished until they shine bright.

Inside, everything should be spotless.  If you can afford it, this is the time to hire someone to do what used to be called spring cleaning - a heavy-duty overhaul of all the nooks and crannies.

Then go through every room using "less is more" as your guideline.  You want to make every room look as spacious as possible, and with that end in mind, remove as much furniture as you can - that extra  rocker, footstool, or table.

If you have an awkward door that complicates movement from one room to the next, take it off its hinges and store it in the garage for the duration.

Check each room in the house for hazards.  Make sure all extension cords are out of sight and remove any potentially slippery throw rugs.  Incidentally, it never helps to put a rug over a spot in the carpet; all that does is call attention to the problem.  Better yet, replace the stained carpet with a new, inexpensive one that will make a room look like a million bucks.

Also, now's the time to pack away a lot of that bic-a-brac that seems to accumulate, to sort through your magazines and get rid of those you don't want to keep, to throw out those old throw pillows that have gotten a little tired.

Take a good look at your kitchen counters, too, and weed out everything you absolutely don't have to use every day.  Everything else should go in the cupboard.

Mini-blinds are not only inexpensive, but they're a terrific solution to all kinds of window decorating problems.  If your curtains are a little worn or faded, replace them with mini-blinds.  They not only give a room a fresh, modern look, but if you buy them in a color that matches the walls, the room will seem much larger.

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Kitchen and Bath Appeal
Buyers react most strongly to kitchens, closets, and bathrooms, so it pays to concentrate your effors in these areas.  If you feel your  kitchen cabinets aren't as up to date as you'd like them to be, sometimes just switching knobs and door handles is a dramatic improvement.  Wonderful reproductions of colored glass knobs and pulls are now  available everywhere.  White porcelain knobs may be a good choice, too.

To enhance the atmosphere in your kitchen and make the prospective buyer feel like a welcome guest, use the subliminal appeal of warm and friendly scents, such as the smell of bread baking in the oven. Some peiople  swear by ready-to-bake cinnamon rolls for mazimum effect.  If you bake something, however, make sure you have a loud kitchen timer handy.  It's quite easy to get distracted when you're readying the house for an inspection by a stranger and the one smell you don't want in the house is that of baked goods burning.

Any kind of potpourri will help, too, and the simmering kind seems to be particulary effective.

New shower curtains are a must before you start to show it.  Tired, streaky shower curtains are a real turnoff.  If you can afford it, buy a set of coordinating towels for each bath as well.  Keep this new set for show only and tuck them away the minute prospective buyers leave.

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Little Details
Plants and flowers are as effective outdoors as they are outside.  Plan on using them as much as possible to dress up several rooms in your home.

If your real estate agent is conducting an open house, you might want to invest in a festive floral arrangement for the occasion, but avoid that kind of formality when you're seeing one prospective buyer at a  time.  Instead, buy a few casual bouquets around the house - a simple vase of daisies or tulips in a bathroom, for example, or a bowl of lilacs in a bedroom.  You don't have to spend a lot on flowers; one bright geranium will go a long way to spark up a room.

To get some pointers on decorating successfully with flowers, study the home decorating magazines.  Almost every room will have an artfully place bouquet or two.

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Plant a Picture
Leafy green plants help.  However, a word of warning...enthusiastic indoor gardeners love all their growing things and tend to overlook the plant with brown tips or bald patches that ought to be thrown out.  If you have plants that aren't in great shape, find a place to hide them while you're showing your house.  Scruffy plants very easily make any  room look messy.

If you have an empty room that you need to fill, try using large plants.  Buy three, and set them on small benches or tables of varying heights.  They will create the illusion of a room in use.  You  can find them at a nominal price in almost any supermarket garden shop.

Most of the time, your agent will show your house by appointment.  But, there will be times when a real estate agent will call and say a client wants to come over right away for a quick look.  That is your  cue to say, calmly, the prospective buyer can see the house in an hour or so, giving you enough time for a quick cleanup.

To make last minute sprucing up easier, buy two-handled baskets, similar to the kind you see in supermarkets.  Stack them in a convenient closet and fill the top basket with a hand vacuum, all-purpose spray cleaner, paper towels, and any other cleaning products you like to use.  Carry both baskets with you as you move from room to room and collect anything that's out of place in the second basket.  This  system is a real time-saver.

If it's one of those days when the house is a complete disaster, tell your agent the buyer will have to look at it another time.You are doing yourself no favors by not keeping your house ready or showing it when it's not at its best.

Even if your dog is your best friend, this is one time when pets shouldn't be around.  Before the prospect arrives, put your pets outside, in a detached garage, or even in pet carriers.  Animals know when something's up and if there's ever a time when a pet is going to act up, it's when a prospective buyer is going through a house.  Then, too, however much some of us love our pets, a lot of people don't - they  may even be allergic to them.

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Show and Tell
Turn all the lights on when your house is shown, even if it's a sunny day.  And if the weather is cold or rainy and you have a fireplace, have a  fire burning steadily.

As you and your agent go through the house, you may want to point out certain details, i.e., the carved mantel, or parquet floor, but don't try to sell the place by listing improvements you think would make it look  even better.  In fact, it's wise not to be present at all when the agent shows your house.  If you are present, remember:  If you wait for the buyer to come up with ideas of this own, that's a good  indication he's beginning to feel possessive and is seriously considering making an offer.

And if two or three or even a dozen buyers come and go, don't let yourself get discouraged.  Sooner or later, someone will walk in the door and decide this is the house for them.

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