Summer is both a hot and competitive time for selling homes. It's a great time to sell, but it's also the time when the market tends to be flooded with available properties. This being said there are a lot of details that if attended to can keep your home on the competitive edge of the real estate market.
With the sun out, the weather warm and everything at its most lush and colorful, this is bar none the most important season for curb appeal, outdoor landscaping and attention paid to the general outside appearance of your home.
Even if you don't have a yard full of established trees and a garden that looks as if its been lifted from a magazine, there are certain jobs to be done that'll work wonders and will enhance the outdoor appeal of your home.
- Whatever plants and trees you do have on your property should appear healthy and neatly pruned. As a general rule anything that is dead or dying should be pulled out or removed. There's nothing worse than seeing decay at a time when all things are meant to be at their peak of life and bloom.
- Keep your lawn in best possible shape. This may mean fertilizing and watering more than you usually would- but the payoff will be a very enticing property.
- Adding a layer of bark mulch around flower beds is a great way to add a finished and fresh look to an outdoor space. It's also a nice sort of cheat in terms of keeping the weeds away, or at least hiding them!
- A quick and easy way to add color to your yard in the summer is to plant summer annuals. You might consider creating a greeting path of lined plants or flowers- something that'll welcome potential buyers and guide them towards your front door. At the door try a colorful pot of flowers, or maybe two, one on each side of the door.
There are still other ideas that can boost the summer sale potential of your home. Think about finding a place to set up a patio set. If you have a deck, this may be the place. But, buyers also like to see alternate outdoor spaces set up in a usable, season specific way. The more you can make your yard appear beautiful and functional, the better.
As we move into the interior of your home, the main thing to consider in these summer months is anything and everything to do with light. You want to show off how light and bright your home can be, and if it isn't so much so, than you want to find some staging tricks to help it appear so.
Any windows should be cleaned so that they are absolutely glistening and letting as much light through as possible. Also note that in the bright summer months many flaws or hidden dirt will be much more visible. So keep it all clean. You'll also want to open all blinds and curtains to show off all your homes light capacity.
The walls of your home should be very clean and ideally recently painted in some light and neutral tones. Heavier colors can be oppressive during the summer, so you may need to consider painting if you're really serious about selling and getting top dollar for your home.
As always the de-clutter staging rule applies in the summer as it does during every season. But in this case, be especially sure to remove the remnants of winter- winter coats and boots, and even heavy winter decor. Bring out whatever you can to lighten up the look of your home and keep things in keeping with the summer months.
As for smells, you'll want to rid your home of any nasty cigarette or pet odors and you might consider spraying the house before showing with a light organic room spray- maybe something like grapefruit or in the light citrus family.
Keep your landscaping fresh and tidy and the interior of your home clean, light and bright and you'll be well on your way to the success of a summer sale!
