Realtor Tip of the Week

Annette Bening Real Estate American Beauty

If you are planning to sell your home anytime in the future then you should start cleaning right now. In the old days we used to say… give it a “white glove test” but most people under forty wouldn’t automatically understand that reference.

People want to buy clean homes!

It seems that many people miss this one point when they are putting their home in the market or feel that it is clean enough because “it’s gonna be cleaned when we move out”.

But here is my professional Realtor tip of the day… “clean enough” is too subjective. There is a classic scene in the movie American Beauty when Annette Bening, who plays the role of a real estate agent, scrubs down a house before her Sunday “open house” and gets a little of her frustration out of her system before becoming Realtor-charming again.

Although this movie scene always gets a laugh, anyone who is in the business knows that CLEAN sells.

Earlier this year I advised a client to clean up his 1950’s Vienna VA rambler, and it sold very quickly. When he first asked me about selling the home and I took a look at it, I knew that it had potential to sell if it was cleaned and painted. It took about $10,000 to get that place in shape but it got the result he was hoping for. And I get this type of question all the time from people who ask about selling their home which they may have lived in for decades.

Hey, this isn’t a Realtor tip just for Vienna or McLean VA homes!

A client inspired me today to write this post… because his 10 year-old town house really need that final cleaning before hitting the market. It is kind of like that final wipe-down that gets the dust, hair or marks off the wall. Often it is the newer homes that have the most dirt and dust around the edges, and it seems just as bad in homes priced at $300k or $1.2 million.

I often ask readers to switch hats for a minute, and now imagine that you are a home buyer looking at a dozen homes today. Aren’t you expecting to see homes that are in tip-top condition?

Here is tip that a handy man gave me that has taken many marks off the walls, possibly ones in your house. Until you try the “Mr. CLEAN’s Magic Eraser” you aren’t going to believe that most of those marks on your walls really can disappear with this little white sponge that you picked up at Giant or Lowes for $3.47.

If you can think CLEAN before you put your home on the market for sale then you will have a much easier time finding a buyer for your home in a short amount of time. CLEAN pays for itself because it often involves only a little extra time, energy and care.

What do you use to take clean to the next level?