Making Your Home's Exterior Show Ready

As you know, I love, love to blog about how to make your home sparkle and shine when selling it. After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and so a buyer's first visit to your house is crucial. With my past posts, I have focused more on the interior of the home and less on the exterior. So now it's time to focus on the outside, and making your exterior as show ready as it can possibly be. Here are a few tips to keep in mind, and they can be used to your advantage primarily in the Spring market, summer months and early fall when the weather in Weston, Wellesley and Wayland is more cooperative and conducive to external beauty:

• Fill your planters with flowers to add color and appeal - I can always tell which homes are on the market as I walk toward the front door and see the gorgeous planters filled with a cornucopia of plantings and flowers. Once I see these beautiful displays, I immediately think I am in for a treat when I enter the home, assuming that the inside will mirror the outside. You can bet that buyers will jump to similar favorable conclusions.
• Do your spring or fall clean-up - This is important, especially after a long winter of snow, wind, ice and branches, sticks and leaves everywhere. It shows care, maintenance and attention to detail - all things that are high on buyers' priority lists for home buying.
• Keep your grass trimmed and looking healthy - Again this sets a positive first impression as buyers approach your home. On the other hand, grass that hasn't been mowed or that is mostly brown instead of mostly green may indicate to buyers that you do not adequately maintain or care about the look of your property.
• Make sure the exterior paint looks fresh and clean - You may not have to repaint the entire exterior of your home, but do make sure there isn't peeling paint or signs that the house is in imminent need of painting. Sometimes this can be as easy as a little touch-up painting.
• Clean your gutters - Buyers frequently notice when gutters are filled to the rim with debris. Their first thought could very well be that you aren't adequately maintaining your house, and their second thought will likely be about the possible moisture problems resulting from the clogged gutters.
• Inspect and remove traces of exterior pests and their damage - By this I mean rid your home of bee's nests, woodpecker damage and ant hills/farms, for example. Your home's exterior - void of these yucky insects and their potentially damaging effects - will look aesthetically pleasing, cared for and well maintained. Plus you won't run the risk of scaring away certain buyers, who are skittish about pests.
• Display your outdoor furniture, fire pits and the like - Outdoor entertaining is BIG these days. So put out those colorful pillows, chairs and couches, and show people how pretty and nice it would be to have dinner on your patio or entertain there.
• Open the pool and/or resurface the tennis court - If you are lucky enough to have a pool and/or tennis court on your property, make sure that these amenities are in tip-top shape too.

These are just a few thoughts on making your home's exterior sparkle and shine so that your buyer's first impression is an extremely favorable one. What are your thoughts? Have you focused on certain aspects of your home's exterior or done work to the outside that have helped successfully sell your home? I can't wait to hear....

For more information on this or on the real estate market in Weston, Wellesley, Wayland and the surrounding towns, please contact me, Lisa Curlett (781-267-2844 or www.homesalesbylisa.com), to answer any questions or for a complimentary home appraisal.