Pre-sale Home Prep: How to Attract Buyers

Despite being in one of the hottest Seller’s markets in modern Los Angeles real estate history, good pre-sale home preparation can help sellers maximize buyer interest, receive strong offers, sell quickly, and encourage a higher sale price than with no pre-sale preparation. Strategic preparation is especially important in appealing to Millennials, the largest cohort of real estate buyers who rely heavily on online visual marketing. A home must show well online as well as in person.

1. Bright and Airy.

Buyers are looking for homes that look bright, clean, and neat. New paint instantly makes your home look newer and helps attract buyers to your home. Using a bright and neutral white paint sets a clean slate for buyers’ imaginations and gives homes a well-kept appearance. The average cost to paint the inside of a home ranges around $2-5 per square foot. 

2. Cleaning and Staging.

Home staging is one of the most powerful tools to attract buyers. It helps buyers visualize a space as their future home. Staged homes tend to sell faster and at a higher price than do homes with no staging. To properly stage a home, we need to hide personal items and make the decor cohesive, as if you have stepped into a modern furniture store. Staging can be full or partial, but having at least some staging is critical. Staging costs vary. For example, a 3-bedroom home in Los Angeles can be fully staged for around $4,000-$7,000. 

3. Curb Appeal.

First impressions are key. Tidy and well-groomed exteriors invite buyers’ curiosity about the inside. A neat and clean exterior translates directly into buyers’ impressions that a home has been well-maintained, allowing buyers to view the rest of the home more favorably as a whole. Improving curb appeal includes doing landscaping (grass, shrubs, flowers), cleaning the exterior of the home, and updating exterior features like light fixtures.

Preparing a home to sell can feel like a lot of work and even daunting. If you are interested in learning more about strategic home preparation, please text or call me to chat at any time at (310) 701-3346.