Preparing Your Miami FSBO for a Quick Sale

With the slow real estate market we are going through, you need to make sure that your Miami For-Sale-By-Owner house is as attractive as it can be to the potential buyers. You need to understand that when someone visits your home, they are imagining what it would be like to live in your house.

For example, if your house doesn’t smell clean, buyers will assume that the smell is only a representation of how poorly the house has been taken care. If the bathrooms are dirty, people won’t be compelled to buy your home; especially, if they visit four other houses the same day.

Here it’s a series of steps you can help people imagine themselves enjoy living in your house right away. Most tips take very little money and time. Create a budget of how much you can spend, (a few hundred dollars can work miracles) and start making the changes today.

First, show your home during daylight whenever possible and with all the blinders up so that there can be as much light as possible in your home. Even if you show your home during the day, turn on all the lights; replace all the light bulbs with 100 watts light bulbs.

If you live in a single family home, keep the lawn cut and trimmed. Clear the lawn of anything that should not be there. If the outside paint is old and you can afford it, give it a new coat of paint. If you can’t afford it, just paint the front door and the trims on the door and front windows.

Also, make sure that the house is easy to find with bold street numbers made of quality materials. Replace the tired old mailbox and dirty doormat with new ones as they detract from your home's appeal. Always remember that anything at the front door will affect a potential buyer's impression, and that you only have one chance to make a good first impression.

In the inside of the house, start by cleaning the carpet and floors. If the carpet is old, hire a professional service to clean it or rent a carpet cleaning machine at a supermarket. You don’t need to get a new carpet because besides being expensive, t he new carpet may not be a color or pattern that matches the buyer’s furniture. Also, if you see that some of the rooms need a new coat of paint, please do so. Sometimes, you may just need to wash off the marks off the walls.

Next, go through your whole house and clean every room. Place special attention to the bathrooms. Also, buy a few soft-scented candles and light them up through out the home half an hour before the first appointment. If you can, buy some fresh or artificial flowersand place them through out the house.

Other inexpensive things that you can do to improve your home with very little money is to change the doorknobs, light switches and electrical outlets with better quality ones. They are really inexpensive and can make a big difference in how your house looks.

Finally, you need to ask yourself a simple but very important question (a question that your potential buyers will be asking themselves), and answer it with total honesty: If I could choose what house to buy (everything else being equal), would I buy this one? If your answer is “no”, you need to ask yourself why and then fix it so that the answer can be positive.