10 Improvements to Make to Your Bothell/Seattle Home Before Selling

Some improvements are worth doing before you move, while others just waste time and money. Read below to see which are which.

10 Improvements to Make to Your Seattle-Area Home Before Selling

The Seattle housing market has been cooling down slightly over the past couple of months. While this is great news for buyers, it means you need to put your best foot forward when looking to sell. The following minor home improvements will help make sure your house sells quickly and for the highest amount.

Paint

Putting on a new coat of paint is pretty easy, pretty cheap, and, well…pretty.  Plus it makes a surprisingly big impact—especially if your walls are dirty, dinged, or are colors from a non-recent decade.

Pro-tip: Be careful of yellows. What is the opposite of shooting fish in a barrel? Whatever it is, that’s how hard it is to find the right shade of yellow.

Boost Curb Appeal

The last thing you want is to have someone drive up, see the front of your house, and drive away without even looking inside.

Pressure wash any moss from walkways and driveways.

Remove moss from your roof – either use a brush or the chemicals. I never recommend using a power washer since you really, really, really don’t want water up under your shingles.

Plant flowers that will be in bloom while your home is on the market.

Pro-tip: If you are worried about buyers not wanting the continued upkeep of plants, you can always put them in pots or planters and take them with you when you move.

Declutter and Depersonalize

That velvet Elvis that’s hanging proudly over your mantlepiece—pull it. The religious iconography you have in your guest bath—take it down.

The goal is to make the house a blank canvas where people can project their own vision of what their house will be. So anything you have up that screams personality is better off taking a trip to the storage unit…at least until your place sells.

Pro-tip: there are some exceptions—if your entire house has a look and furnishings that fit a theme (mid-century modern, etc.) keep anything that fits.

Make Minor Repairs

Now is the time to take care of that leaking kitchen faucet, moldy bathtub caulk, or door that sticks. Though they may be little things that you are used to, potential buyers will wonder “if they haven’t fixed this, what else haven’t they fixed?”

Obviously you can’t fix every little thing, so prioritize those that are clearly visible or will be easily noticed by someone walking through your home.

Minor Kitchen or Bath Updates

Chances are, you won’t increase the price of your home enough to justify a whole kitchen remodel, but it is worth doing the little things. If your faucet leaks or looks out of date, your sink has chips, cracks, or scratches, or your fridge looks like it is something from grandma’s house, it is worth the money to replace them.

When my wife and I sold her condo, we got all new appliances and countertops right before we sold. We wished we would have done it months earlier, though, so at least we would have been able to spend some time enjoying the upgrade!

Use Neutral Colors

Even if you love a bright and bold color scheme with every color of the rainbow on your walls, that isn’t going to help your house sell. Again, you want people to be able to envision their life in the house, not your life.

Pro-tip: I never thought it was even possible, but I now have a few favorite colors of just-slightly-off-white. If the flooring in your room has a lot of warm tones consider a paint with warm undertones. If the flooring is more gray or blue-ish, go with cooler undertones. If you’d like a specific recommendation, just reach out and ask me.

Hire Cleaners and a Landscape Crew

Make sure your lawn is well-manicured the whole time your house is on the market. Hire a landscaper to come weekly and mow the grass, pull weeds, clean off sidewalks, etc.

Unless you’ve got a lot of time on your hands and love cleaning, hire a professional crew to do a final deep clean right before listing photos are taken. Pay special attention to all kitchen surfaces (stove, refrigerator, cabinet doors), baseboards, and carpets. If your carpets need work, be sure to have them deep cleaned (or replaced) before the staging goes in.

Improve Lighting

Swapping out light fixtures can be cheap and relatively easy to do and can make a boring, dated room look sleek and stylish.

If you have any rooms that are poorly lit or just feel a little dark, add more lights, or at the very least consider increasing the wattage of the bulbs in your existing fixtures.

Pro-tip: make sure none of your light bulbs are burnt out and the color (cool vs. warm) all match. Warm light generally makes rooms more welcoming and inviting.

Consider Moving Out and Staging Your Home

If you can move out of your home while it is on the market, it will definitely help. It makes showings easier, and saves you the giant headache of having to either keep your house immaculately clean all the time, or cleaning up every time a showing get scheduled.

Although it costs more, it’s worth it to have your home professionally staged. Even if your furniture is nice, chances are it isn’t designed to help make each room look bigger and more comfortable.

It turns out a lot of people don’t have very good imaginations, and being able to see how a room can be set up can help a lot. If a picture is worth a thousand words, home staging is worth several thousand dollars in increased sales price.

Get Your Home Inspected

Always get your home inspected before listing it. The last thing you want is to think you have a deal, only to see it all come undone because the buyer finds something weird in their inspection.

If you know there are things that will show up on an inspection report, I recommend fixing those things first, then having an inspector come in.

Many of the things that will show up on the inspection report will be minor and once you have them fixed, you can add a note to the inspection report showing work that has been completed.

Pro-tip: When doing a seller inspection, get the most detailed inspector you can find. You want the one that will call out every chipped outlet cover or missing cabinet handle—this will increase confidence from your buyers that nothing is being hidden.

So if you are thinking about selling your home, give some thought to what the improvements are that will give you the biggest bang for your buck, to make sure your house sells quickly (and for the highest possible amount).