3 Things To Do Around The House Before Your Open House

If you are looking to sell your home in a competitive real estate market, you will want to do everything possible to give yourself an edge. If you have an open house coming up, you are no doubt vacuuming and attempting to make the house look as good as possible. Your realtor might have some best practices you can follow, but if you really want to impress potential buyers, here are three relatively simple things you can do that can make a big impact when people come to look at your house.

Don't Forget The Closets

Normally when people tidy up a room for an open house, they hit the obvious spots that are visible upon walking into the room. But one area you might be forgetting about is any available storage space. Potential buyers do often take a quick peek at your closets to see how much space there is. If your method of cleaning up involves just shoving everything into the closet, this is probably not going to make a very good impression. Tidy up and condense the closet as much as possible in order to make it look like there is a lot of room.

Change the Lightbulbs and Open the Blinds

It's amazing what the right lighting can do for you. You can start by opening up the blinds in every room to let in natural sunlight. But an even better idea might be to go out and invest in some higher wattage light bulbs that you can use in all of your fixtures just for the open house. You don't want a potential buyer having to walk into a room and see a bunch of shadows or darkened areas throughout your house. You can always switch back to lower watt bulbs after the open house is over to save on energy costs.

Make It Look Like a Pet-Free Home

Lots of people love their dog or cat so much that they don't even stop to think that not every person is an animal lover. One area that might be easy to overlook when tidying up for an open house is the trail left behind by your pet. After all, you might not see anything wrong with a dog bowl filled with food sitting out or a few spare cat toys sitting on the ground. A potential buyer, however, could be turned off by pet odor or be thinking about the steam cleaning they'll have to do when they move in because they have an allergic reaction to dog fur.

Sometimes it's the small things that can really give you an edge when trying to sell your home. Take care to make sure your closets are as empty and clean as possible, illuminate the house with lots of light and don't forget to clean up after your pet, and you might just be on your way towards getting your first offer. Reach out to a local realtor today for more great tips.