6 Tips to Prepare For Your First Home Showing

When the time comes to sell your property, home shows are a great way to show off your property and make connections with buyers. Preparing your home for the event can help ensure that your home show is a productive use of everyone's time. Staging your home, boosting curb appeal and making other preparations can help ensure that buyers will see the best in your house.

Make A Book

What do you love about your house? Your neighbourhood? The town where you live? When visitors come to your home, you probably won't be there answer questions and point out the small things that make your home a special place to live. Making a book listing local attractions, convenient pointers and your home's special features can help make your property more appealing to potential buyers. During the showing, leave this book on your dining room table or kitchen table for easy access.

Prepare A Menu

Food and drink can make your house more inviting for home buyers, and can make time spent in your home more pleasant. Offering buyers juice and snacks can keep them lingering at your house, and could lead to potential offers.

Typically, people who offer snacks at their home shows will keep the menu simple. Set out a pitcher of lemonade, juice or tea, and a tasty treat like cookies or crackers. Don't forget cups and napkins. Leave a note card on the table next to your snacks labeling each food item, so visitors will know what's being offered.

Stage Your Home

Staging your home when selling is a way of making your house look more attractive to buyers. Staging may be done gradually, often beginning months before the house goes on the market. During the staging process, many homeowners will do the following:

• Remove clutter.
• Organize storage spaces.
• Clean carpets and walls.
• Get rid of damaged furniture.
• Repaint rooms in a neutral colour.

When staging your home, the goal is to make each room look spacious, clean and newly decorated. Your real estate agent may be able to give pointers that can help you during this process.

Make Arrangements For Pets

Some buyers may have fears or allergies that could make your pet an undesirable presence during home shows. To avoid problems and keep the focus on your home, make arrangements for your pet to go elsewhere during your home show.

You might be able to send your pet to visit friends or relatives, or you might be able to board your pet at a local animal boarding home. Look into this in advance so you'll know what to do with your pet on the day the showing occurs.

Boost Curb Appeal

Curb appeal is what makes your home look beautiful when buyers first pull up. Curb appeal can be achieved in many ways, including:

• Cut the grass.
• Edge the lawn.
• Plant colourful, easy to maintain flowers.
• Establish a watering schedule to keep the flowers and grass growing nicely.
• Clean the facade of the house, including the siding and windows.
• Remove yard debris.
• Sweep the sidewalk and pathways leading to the house.
• Prune overgrown bushes.

You may also need to make small repairs around your property to boost curb appeal. How your home exterior looks is important—even if you live in a great community like Belgravia. For example, unclog your gutters, change burned out light bulbs and trim back branches that overhang the home. This can help reassure buyers that your home has been well-maintained.

Leave the House for a Home Showing

During the showing, buyers need to feel free to express their opinions and explore your home. They also need time to confer with their real estate agent, and discuss pricing and other issues. However, many buyers will feel uncomfortable discussing these issues if the owners are present. Getting out of the house gives potential buyers the ability to roam freely through your house, without worry. 

As a home seller, you may find that you prefer to be out of the house during the home showing anyway. It can be hard to watch strangers enter your bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen, and look at it with a critical eye.

If you're uncomfortable with the idea of strangers going through your house, just remember that a real estate agent will be with the buyers. Your house is in good hands, even if you're not in it. 

Coordinate With Your Real Estate Agent

An experienced real estate agent can help you plan for your upcoming home show. Before the first home show occurs, walk through your house with your real estate agent to identify changes that can make your home more appealing to home buyers.