• Your house must be clean. “Sparkling” should be the right description for the condition of your house. It should never be 10 years since the outside of the second-floor windows were washed. Floors must look brand new. This is often achievable (and only feasible) by employing a cleaning crew’s services. It’s even considered a good investment to have your cleaning team in weekly to inspect and freshen while your home is for sale. Your windows, chimneys, shutters, and other places should be professionally cleaned outside and inside the home. • Fix or replace broken or worn-out items. Having a cracked tile or a dripping faucet will send a wrong impression to prospective buyers — that the home has been neglected. Replacing or getting these (small) items fixed before putting your house on the market is critical to your sale. • Get rid of clutter. Make use of the “50% Rule.” You get rid of clutter in your house by at least half. Since we all tend to love our stuff, this might be the most difficult rule of all. Our stuff reflects our hobbies, memories, and values. Unfortunately, clutter doesn’t sell a home; in fact, it hinders the sale. Clutter also makes a home seem disorganized and smaller. I opened the garage to a house we were considering making our own home to find a partially dismembered deer in process of the homeowner’s hunting and taxidermy hobby. We didn’t consider the home any further, although it was equal in most ways to others we liked. We just couldn’t get past that dead deer in “our” garage. • Using neutral colors. It’s well known that using neutral
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