Make Your Garden Grove Home More Appealing To Buyers

Real estate agents see it all the time: Ajax homes for sale sitting on the market untouched for months because the current owners had an obsession with tiger-print wall paper or enough furniture to fill an English manor house. Staging a house is the art of making it look inviting while at the same time open enough to interpretation that the prospective buyer is able to imagine his or her new life in the house. It's a tricky business but once you learn a few simple rules your house will fly off the market faster than you can say 'opening offer.'

Step 1: De-clutter

You're planning on moving anyway, so why not start by putting some furniture into storage or giving it away to friends? Any Brampton real estate agent will tell you that it's next to impossible to get potential buyers interested if they can barely fit in the house. So take that extra coffee table and that wardrobe that's blocking part of the closet door and the King size bed that eats up all the space in your bedroom and hide them away. The idea is to leave enough furniture that the house doesn't look empty but not so much that it hides the actual size and shape of the room.

Step 2: Fix

Once you can actually see the floor and the walls in most of your rooms, you'll probably start to notice little things that need fixing like nicks in the woodwork or scratches in the paint. You may be tempted, because these problems are so little, to leave them for the new owners to fix, but as the agents of Scarborough Realty warn on their website, this will reduce what buyers are willing to offer by significantly more than the repairs are worth. So invest in a can of spackle and some paint and fix these things yourself. You should also make sure none of the faucets drip and there are no leaks in the roof.

Step 3: Clean

You don't see show homes in the Fashion House Condos brochure with cobwebs in the corner over the fridge or crayons melted into the carpet, and if you want your house to sell you shouldn't have these things either. Spring for a carpet cleaner to shampoo your rugs, rent a pressure washer to polish the outer surface of your home, and roll a new coat of tar on the driveway. Wash the walls, mow the lawn, straighten up the wall hangings, and make sure the insides and outsides of all the appliances are spotless.

Step 4: City Appeal

You may have been living in Garden Grove for so long that you don't notice what's unique about the city anymore, but your potential buyers will be looking for that 'something' and if they don't find it they won't buy. Toronto real estate blogs are always going on about the appeal of Yonge Street and British heritage, so apply a little of Garden Grove to your home. Bring some California style plants such as palm trees inside for decoration or add a few rancho decorations to bring out the area's Spanish Mission heritage.