Remember that the exterior of the house must be clean and welcoming if you want people to come inside. Either hire a professional to power wash your home and walkways, or rent a power washer and do the job yourself. Your end-goal is to create a pleasant, memorable experience for house hunters that will make potential buyers feel right at home. Better yet, making them feel like it could be their home. In addition to glistening floors and streak-free windows, there’s an important factor that very few sellers consider: the neighbors. Although it is probably not the first thing a house hunter considers in selecting a new home, eventually, they will be interested in learning something about the neighbors. Neighbors can be both you and your buyer’s best friends. Alternately, they can also turn out to be your biggest nightmare. Taking the surprise element out of the equation helps put buyers to ease, so it’s often a good idea to invite the neighbors to participate in the open house. It goes without saying that you shouldmake sure that the neighbors you invite are indeed people who will make buyers feel comfortable and at home. MAKE YOUR OPEN HOUSE THE EVENT OF THE SEASON We cannot overstate the importance of hiring a professional photographer or videographer tomake your openhouse into an “event.”They can create a short, videotaped virtual tour to tease potential buyers into wanting to see more, andwill capture and edit the perfect photographs of both the interior and the exterior of your home. They are experts on achieving the proper lighting to best display the highlights and focal points of each room.They canmake suggestions about the arrangement of existing furniture or ideas on bringing in a professional stager. It does take a village to sell a house, and this professionals can only benefit you by showing your property at its best. A fewdays before your open house event, mow the lawn, weed and freshen up your flower beds and garden with new mulch or groundcover, and splurge on a new doormat. On the day of the open house, you or your real estate agent should post directional signs around your neighborhood and at the entry point where
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