A potential buyer's first impression of your home begins at the curb. Does it have curb appeal? The first ten second look an invite buyers or turn them away. Look at the front of your house with a buyer's eyes. Get a second pair of eyes to look with you. Before you list your house, try this simple exercise. Walk acorss the street from your house, look at your yard and house, and ask yourself these questions:
1. What is your eyes drawn to first and what impression is that making?
2. What are the best exterior features of the house and yard, and how can you enhance them?
3. What are the least attractive features, and how can you improve them?
Those questions will tell you what the curb appeal of your house is. Here are a few guidelines to help you stage the exterior of your house as well as you stage the interior:
1. Mow the lawn, trim the bushes, and clean out the beds of weeds, dead plants and old flower heads.
2. Kill the mold & mildew on the the house, walkways, roof, and driveway.
3. Put away all the garden implements and tools.
4. Clean the gutters and windows.
5. Pressure wash dirty siding and dingy decks.
6. Rake and dispose of leaves and downed branches, even if your lot is wooded.
7. Trim tree limbs that are near or touching the home.
You want the potential buyer of your home to have a first impression that you have taken good care of your property and that impression starts at the curb. Curb appeal is what gives the buyer the idea of whether they would like to look inside the house. You spent money staging the interior, why don't you make sure buyers are drawn to come into see it?
Hello Cyndi -- a great checklist -- it may be trite to say but only because it is so true -- there's only one chance to make a first impression. Your list will go a long way in helping home sellers to get potential home buyers out of the car(or away from the computer screen) and into the home.
It is really so simple. People hardly ever step across the street of their own home. I had a client that was so narrow in his thinking and spent thousands of dollars getting the inside ready and staged, but he didn't want to spend the money pressure washing his walkways. Guess what the comments of the agents were that showed the home. You are right, there were more mention of the exterior being "uninviting". They couldn't believe my interior photos were the of the same house.
I like the idea of walking across the street it gives the full view of the house. So you should not necesarrily see it from the mail box but rather from a point beyond great tip
Yes, Charlie, I've had so much told some of my really "blind" sellers to slow down the next time they drive to their house to look what they see. I've also ask them while they are mowing their lawn to mow the parking strip.