Last year, 2018, my wife and I thought we might want to sell our house and downsize to a single level home. We decided to contact our real estate agent, Ms. Juanita Smart, who helped us buy our home in 1994, to see what we needed to do to get our current home ready for sale. We met with Ms. Smart and explained that we needed to know what to do to prepare our house For Sale, and what recommendations she may have in finding a new home for us. When we first met, Ms. Smart was very professional in her review. She first took a tour of our home and asked us to make a list of improvements we made to the home and when they were made. She stated that this would help advertise the home as well as help the appraiser to properly assess the value of the house. The next thing Ms. Smart did was draw up a list of items we should consider, to improve the chances of selling the home at a higher value. Then came the hardest part of her presentation; she told us we needed to unclutter our home, identify items for donation, have a garage sale for items, identify items that family members may want, or trash items that had been building up over the years but never used. The reason for her recommendation was that in showing a house in its best possible light was to have it look as spacious and well lit as possible. So we proceeded to reduce the number of bulky furniture items from the various rooms, we also removed all personal items such as pictures from the walls and those showcased in picture frames. We also removed curtains in several of the rooms to help with lighting up the areas. The house had been painted on the interior; however, Ms. Smart indicated that having colored painted rooms was not always a good selling point, so without having to have the whole interior of the home repainted she recommended which rooms should be considered for repainting. Her suggestions made very good sense, plus she recommended a good painter. She also recommended replacing some flooring. Replacing the floors in the Kitchen and
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