Six months to two years before you list, Diane walks through your home room by room and hands you a list of low-cost fix-ups that can bring back two to three times what you spend.
Get My Free Room by Room ReviewYour house does not need to be ready. Don't clean up for us.
Most sellers think staging starts with paint. It doesn't. It starts with someone walking through your house, room by room, and handing you a list. That's the first step, and you must do it first.
The doctor doesn't hand you a prescription the second you walk in. First comes the test. So we walk every room, the basement, the garage, and the outside. I can look right past the clutter and see what your home needs.
Then we sit down and you get your list. What to do first, what to do second, and what to do third. Sellers tell me it gave them an action plan, it gave them hope, and it gave them a good place to start.
Every fix-up on your list has one job: bring back more than it costs. If it can't do that, it doesn't belong on your list.
Every home is different, and every seller's goals are different. Here is how we take you from "where do I start?" to a home that's ready for buyers.
We start with what's important to you about selling.
Repairs, updates, professional cleaning, closets cleaned out, rooms painted, the garage and basement cleared and painted, personal pictures down, and extra furniture out.
A pre-market home inspection tells you what's marginal and what's defective. We go through that list together.
For everything on the list. You can't commit to a repair until you know what it costs.
This is the critical moment. You want two to three times what you put in. And you can always do all of it, some of it, or none of it.
Use the ones you're comfortable with, or the ones on our list. Every repair goes on a timeline with a completion date.
Getting started too late is the number one mistake I see. About ninety-five percent of our business is working with people a year in advance, before they ever sell.
People plan their healthcare. They plan their financial future. Your home is one of the largest assets you will ever own. Have a plan for it.
In my book Home Selling Sharks, I call it the Staging Shark. Sellers don't have a plan and don't prepare early enough. Buyers don't like how the house looks online, and they move on. Your home ends up on the clearance rack.
And please, do not paint your walls white. I see it all the time.
Spending two thousand dollars to get two thousand back is not a plan.
How many homes has your painter sold? How many has your handyman sold?
No time left for the low-cost repairs, so the money stays in the house.
Two of our sellers, and what happened when they followed the plan.
Pick up your phone and walk me through your house on video, room by room. I see homes this way every week, right from my desk. Thirty minutes, and you have your list.
Get My Free Room by Room Review
Broker-Owner, CARDANO, REALTORS® | GRI, CRS | Licensed Since 1993
Founder and managing broker of CARDANO, REALTORS® in Abington, PA, with over 2,000 closed transactions across the Philadelphia suburbs, parts of Philadelphia, and South Jersey. Known to her clients and students as the “Expired Listing Queen,” and the author of five books for home sellers.
