6 Things to Remember When Preparing Your Home for a Summer Sale

Posted on: May 29, 2019
By: Alan O'Neill
Posted in: Air Conditioning, Helpful Tips

Selling your house is much different than selling your car or anything else that you own. When you sell your car you can usually get a quick quote and move on with your life. On the other hand, real estate agents will tell you that while each locale has its own peak selling season, the warmer months are a great time to put your house up for sale. In some states like Texas, some Realtors feel that the peak selling season coincides with the start of daylight savings time, while some northern states may see their strongest home sales during May, June, and July.

Regardless, summer is usually an excellent time to sell your home, and following are six tips that can make the process successful:

Make sure your home is nice and cool on those hot summer days. A preemptive HVAC inspection was done well before you list your home is a great idea. Even if your yard looks great, a warm and stuffy interior will definitely detract from the rest of your property and can result in a lower sales price. If your inspection produces bad news, it’s much better to replace components before an issue is caught during a final inspection. Also, if you discover problems ahead of time, you can shop for the best repair deal.

Back Yard

We all may have that area where we keep junk like old wheelbarrows, broken garden tools, pieces of fencing material, plant stakes, half-used fertilizer bags, assorted mulch varieties and—don’t forget—numerous and mostly broken plastic children’s toys. If we’ve just described a corner of your backyard, by all means clean it up! Any area of your home that looks dilapidated will impact forthcoming offers to purchase.

Front Yard

Curb appeal is not only a DIY TV show cliché—it’s a real consideration. If you’ve ever shopped for a new home, you know that after a long day of viewing properties, nothing really stands out anymore, and you are so tired of looking at homes that you may simply drive by and make quick decisions. Any homes with ugly grass and cracked driveways are many times quickly crossed off potential buyers’ lists, so make sure your front yard looks great.

Bad Grass?

If you have a less-than-stellar lawn that’s full of weeds, use this pro landscaper’s trick and cut it short because a short area of weeds and junk grass will look better nicely trimmed. Next, go to your neighborhood home improvement store and buy an electric edger. A lawn full of weeds will look a lot nicer with a finished edged look. Be sure you make the home repairs so that you won’t cost your buyer any extra money or negotiations.

Pool

Pools are great, but off-colored water and brown streaks on the walls and pool surfaces will detract from your home’s appeal. Make sure the pool guy comes out at least two weeks before your home is listed so that your back-yard swimming area looks cool, clean and inviting.

Garage

Summer has a way of conjuring odors, and if your garage is full of dust, mold, mildew and the concrete floor is stained with oil, gas and transmission fluid, that’s the recipe for quite an interesting aroma that can easily turn off buyers. Therefore, make it a priority to vacuum all surfaces and give the garage floor a deep cleaning.

Whether you’re moving from a suburban house, to an affordable downtown 3-bedroom apartment, or anywhere in between, if you have the luxury of a peak-season summer home sale, be sure that you follow the six bits of advice above to ensure that you will get a great top-dollar offer for your home.