2018

Curb appeal is arguably the most important thing when getting ready to sell your house. But if your house has overgrown shrubs, trees and bushes, the paint is peeling and the windows are dirty and the house is just plain ugly, it will most definitely give a bad first impression to potential buyers. They will get the impression that the inside of the property is just as bad. One of the best things you can do to help increase your properties curb appeal is a fresh coat of paint on the exterior. In this write up we will cover a few things to help you in choosing colors as well as getting the job done yourself.

How Important Is Paint When Selling Your Home?

Paint and the color of your paint are extremely important when it comes to selling your property. The last thing you want to do is personalize the color to much. You need to stick with more common colors to make sure your property is appealing to the largest amount of buyers as possible. Local Agent Finder has this to say about your properties exterior:

Painting the Property’s Exterior

The importance of a good first impression on buyers cannot be emphasized enough. And the first impression that potential buyers have of your home is its exterior. It’s vital to make sure that the front of your home is as well-presented as possible. Badly maintained homes or those with a distasteful paint colours will be off-putting to buyers and may well cause them to offer a lower bid or simply look elsewhere. By painting the outer walls of your property, you can increase ‘curb appeal’ and make your home stand out from the neighbours’ houses. Neutral colours are generally recommended because they will appeal to a wider range of potential buyers. Although bold colours can be exciting, they may fall out of fashion or make your home stand out for all the wrong reasons. You can play around with colour by painting the trim a bolder shade, to make your property really pop.

Read The Full Article “Should I Paint Before Selling My House?” Here

Really good advice, especially when it comes to choosing the right colors. And, as we mentioned before, if the paint is peeling anywhere on the exterior, it will make buyers think there is even more wrong with the property on the inside.

So how do you go about choosing the best colors for your property? Check this out from How Stuff Works:

In picking a color, keep in mind the character of a neighborhood. If all the houses on the street are beige and tan, don’t paint your house pink. Common sense, right? Not for many people. The color should also reflect the landscape. Consider the shrubs and trees when shopping for a color.

You can’t go wrong with white. White is one of the safest, and most popular colors, to paint the exterior. According to one survey, nearly 40 percent of those questioned liked white. For one thing, white can make your house look larger. White also soaks up the light in a shady yard, and is also clean-looking. One of the nice things about white is that you can paint the trim with a color that makes the entire house pop [source: Burns]. Remember too, white isn’t just white; it comes in many hues.

Read The Full Article “10 Paint Colors to Help Sell Your Home” Here

We can’t tell you how many times we have gone into a neighborhood and seen a house that stands out from the crowd, and not in a good way either. It almost always seems that there is one neighbor that thinks pink is okay, or some other god awful pastel color. We agree with the above article that white is a safe color, but we always choose more earth tones for the properties that we renovate.

Here is more on choosing colors from a great YouTube video:

Now you have a good idea about choosing colors. The next question is are you going to paint the house yourself, or higher someone to do it for you?

Painting Your House Yourself

If you choose to paint your house yourself be prepared to spend some time doing it. To properly paint your house you won’t be able to do it in a weekend! One of the most important things to do when painting your house is prep work, which is often overlooked by the average do it yourselfer. Have you never painted a house before? Then check this out on paint prep:

1-day project: Wash your house

If you aren’t already washing your siding once a year, now is the time to start. This will remove any mold and mildew, expose any potential problems and get the surface ready for prep work and painting.

• A pressure washer is the most popular cleaning tool, thanks to its powerful spray — but it’s not a magic wand. In addition to patience, you’ll also need protective eyewear, a couple of five-gallon buckets, a pressure-washing cleaning solution and a stiff brush.
• Soak the surface first to loosen up debris, and then start cleaning with a wide, sweeping motion, from the bottom to the top of each wall.
• To prevent damage, start spraying at a distance of 10 feet and work your way in. Wash windows, garage doors and cracked seals at the lowest setting or by hand.
• If that big, loud pressure washer leaves you feeling a little gun-shy, you can get the same results with a scrub brush, bleach solution and garden hose.

Read The Full Article “How to Paint the Exterior of Your Home (the Easy Way!)” Here

If you have, or have not painted a house before we recommend that you read that entire article to learn some valuable tips. It’s important to note that they take a full month to paint a property, that’s if you have a full time job that won’t let you take off some time to spend a couple of weeks painting you house on your own.

Summing It Up

Painting the exterior of your home will greatly improve your properties curb appeal. If you do it yourself it’s going to take you some time, but you will have a great sense of satisfaction once it’s done. Just make sure you spend some time in picking the right colors to appeal to the widest range of buyers as possible.

The draw back with painting the exterior is that it’s going to take some time, whether you do it yourself or higher a contractor. As a quick reminder, if you need to sell your house fast and are in the Metro Atlanta area, here at Mandich Property Group we buy houses in any condition. We don’t care about peeling paint or anything else. To get a free no obligation offer you can visit our website or call us at (770) 756-8680.

It’s time to put your house on the market. What’s the first thing you need to do? Clean it! From top to bottom. Believe it or not, if your house is dirty, you’re not going to get a buyer as quickly as you would like. So what do you need to do, where do you start? Keep reading below to find out 🙂

Clean Houses Sell Quicker

You may or may not have spent a lot of money on updates on the interior of your house. The outside might be nice and the buyer likes it, or it’s just so-so. Then they walk in the house with clutter and/or carpets aren’t vacuumed or floors swept and a half inch of dust on everything. If the buyer was on the fence before, they’ve definitely fallen off now. The fact is, your house has to be clean.

Yes, a nice and clean house will most definitely sell faster than one that is dirty. A lot of people skip this step, only to wonder why their house isn’t selling as quickly as others that are similar on the market. Think you don’t need to super clean your house? Don’t take our word for it – check this out:

Why Do I Have to Clean my House?

This is a very common question. Based on houses for sale that I have visited, there are lots of people who feel that house buyers are coming to look at the layout and condition of the house, not to inspect its cleanliness. That thinking is both right and wrong – that’s why I wrote this section on house cleaning tips.

It’s true that the reason home shoppers look at houses is to inspect the layout and condition. However, there are several reasons why cleaning it and keeping it clean are to your advantage:

Showing a Messy or Dirty House

1. If potential buyers get distracted by too much disorder, they may will walk away from the house with a sense that it has not been well- maintained, even if it is actually in great condition.

2. If the house is dirty/messy it gives people the feeling that they will have a lot of work to clean it before they can move in.

3. Some people won’t be able to see past the mess/dirt. They will get a sense that the house is hard to maintain and doesn’t have enough storage – neither if which are good selling features.

Read The Full Article “House Cleaning Tips to Sell Your Home” Here

We couldn’t agree more with what they have to say about showing a dirty house. If you have spent a lot of time and money with the upkeep of your property, you don’t want potential buyers walking away because your house is dirty and think it hasn’t been maintained.

Getting The Job Done

Now you know without a doubt you have to “super clean” your house. Some people will have more work to do than others. Yes there are “clean freaks” out there that won’t have to do as much. But there are others that will have to do much more, especially if they have a house full of small children and pets.

Check out this article from Curbed that will give you some good advice on some tools to use to get the job done:

Deep Cleaning—Floors and Surfaces

While a Swiffer Sweeper with wet and dry pads is perfectly suited for everyday spot cleaning, you’ll want something with a little more power for a deep clean. Investing in a quality vacuum cleaner will save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run. Look for something bagless and lightweight so you don’t have to lug a heavy machine around the house. The iconic Dyson Ball Vacuum is a splurge, but its powerful suction and multiple attachments are well worth the price tag. Bissel also makes a budget bagless vacuum that’s very well reviewed.

Once you’re done with the floors, a telescoping microfiber can handle furniture, countertops, ceiling fans, and other hard-to-reach areas. For textiles, a portable steamer will help lift those mystery stains on your carpets and upholstery.

Read The Full Article “Spring Cleaning 101: The best vacuums, dusters, storage bins, and more” Here

You might already have a good vacuum cleaner, however if you don’t just think of it this way – if you go buy a nice one you will have it to use at your new dwelling!

Summing It Up

Don’t think that you don’t have to deep clean your house before selling it. While it is true that people are looking at the layout of the property, they will also be subconsciously making judgements about the property due to it’s cleanliness. If you don’t have a good vacuum cleaner or other cleaning supplies, go ahead and buy them and you can take them with you to your next house or apartment.

As a reminder, if you have a house that you are selling in the Metro Atlanta area, we buy houses in any condition. No need to make repairs or even clean the house. Find out more at MandichPropertyGroup.com

Believe it or not, kitchens are a big selling point when selling your house. For a lot of people it is the focal point of the home, especially families with children. It’s where the entire family comes together and has breakfast before heading off to school and work, and then in the evening winds down and has dinner and talks about their day. So it only makes sense that it is one of the biggest selling points of your home. Your mission, should you choose to accept it 😉 –  is to clean, spruce up and organize your kitchen so that it is as inviting and “warm” as possible for potential buyers. In this article we are going to cover a few tips on organizing things in your kitchen to give it a more neat of an appearance for buyers.

Declutter Your Kitchen

The last thing you want is someone to open up the cabinet under the sink and find all kinds of cleaning supplies haphazardly scattered throughout, or to open your junk drawer that has stuff in there that belongs in the garage.

The first thing you need to do is remove things that just don’t belong in the kitchen. Start with that junk drawer. Then under the sink. When you start, don’t panic, we know that it can seem a little overwhelming when you look at the entire picture. Organized Home has some good info on this:

Take It Step-By-Step

Once you get started, it’s hard to avoid decluttering all sides at once. For example, you find a lone Christmas plate in the junk drawer, so you go to the high cabinet that holds the Christmas dishes, only to see a sack of whole oats that belongs in the cupboard where sits the bottle of window cleaner you forgot you stashed there while looking for the mop a few days ago … stop!

Declutter a single shelf, drawer or cupboard at a time, no exceptions.

Use one of the boxes to hold items to be put away in another location in the kitchen, and assign a second box for rest-of-the-house put-aways.

Donations or items for storage go to their respective boxes. Stick with your shelf until you’re done, then put away the items from the put-away boxes before moving on. You’ll stay focused when you declutter one step at a time!

Decluttering step-by-step also provides a natural opportunity to break down a big job. If you’re distracted by caring for small children, declutter one drawer or shelf per nap, deep-cleaning as you go.

Read The Full Article “Cut Clutter in the Kitchen” Here

Taking it step by step is great advice. It’s kind of like “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time” (we don’t condone eating elephants 🙂 ). Another great tip is that if you don’t need it right now and can do without an item for a while, go ahead and pack it up and move it to storage, then you are one step ahead when it comes time to move!

Organization

Once you have the kitchen decluttered, next you need to try and properly organize your kitchen, even under the sink. A smart buyer is always going to look under the sink to evaluate the plumbing and/or garbage disposal. Thankfully there are some inexpensive things you can do to help better organize under the sink and other areas of your kitchen. Houzz just put out a great article with some fantastic ideas:

Cabinet door organizers. Make the most of your below-sink area with the addition of slim cabinet door organizers. These mini-shelves are perfect for storing small, frequently accessed items like sponges, scrub brushes and rubber gloves.

Pullout shelves. Part of what makes the below-sink zone such a mess is its depth; no wonder things get all jumbled up when you can’t even see what’s in there! Install gliding shelves inside your cabinet, and when you need to reach something way at the back all you have to do is pull out the shelf.

Labeled bins. If your cleaning supplies are out of control even after decluttering, you may need a bit more structure. Clear, labeled bins sorted by task (floors, windows, etc.) can help you see at a glance which set of products you need. Pair these with pullout shelves for a supremely organized cleanup zone.

Read The Full Article “Post-KonMari: How to Organize Your Cleaning Supplies” Here

The first and third suggestions are relatively inexpensive and easy to do. Pullout shelves maybe a little harder for your average homeowner to accomplish and be a little more expensive. More than likely the pullout shelves will have to be custom built, and without the proper tools can be rather difficult to complete.

Summing It Up

When you first think about cleaning and organizing your kitchen, you may be a little overwhelmed at first. Maybe just set aside a weekend to get it done, depending on how much you have to do and how big your kitchen is. Remember, for most buyers, the kitchen is the biggest selling point of your home, so don’t skip it or take short cuts. Follow the above tips and with a little elbow grease, you can have a clean and well organized kitchen for prospective buyers.

If you don’t want to have all of the hassles of cleaning and tidying up your kitchen, or your entire house for that matter, don’t forget, we buy houses as is and in any condition – Mandich Property Group. Just reach out to us and we will be more than happy to make you an offer on your property just the way it is 🙂

One of the most important things you can do to help sell your home quickly is to improve it’s curb appeal. You only get one chance to make a first impression. When a potential buyer arrives at your residence they will quickly judge your house on it’s initial appearance, usually within the first minute. If the yard needs mowing, shrubs are over grown and paint is peeling on the siding or front door – well they may think your house is just as rough on the inside and be turned off right away. If you want to sell your house as quickly as possible, then check out these easy and inexpensive tips to improve your properties curb appeal to get a buyer quickly.

Dazzle And Entice Buyers With An Inviting Front Yard

In a previous post “Cleaning Your House Before Selling It ” we touched on the importance of just how important it is to clean and tidy up your house before marketing it. The same holds true for your front and backyard and all of the natural areas. If the yard is unkempt and windows are dirty along with dirt on the foundation from rain, well that’s not going to give the best first impression or be all that inviting.

Besides the yard, one of the first things people notice is the entry way and the front door. Making this area “pop” is a great idea which HGTV has some good advice on:

Glam the Front Door

Adding pizzazz to your home’s front entrance is an easy, low-cost way to up your home’s curb appeal. Try painting your door a pretty hue that coordinates with your home’s color. “Make sure there is a contrast between the front door and the facade of the home,” says Kristine Ginsberg, owner of Elite Staging and Redesign in Morris County, N.J. If your house is gray or white with black shutters, consider painting the front door red, she suggests. Other ways to beautify your home’s exterior are adding appealing house numbers to your entrance and hanging a pretty wreath on the door. For extra pop, place a potted plant or two by the front entrance.

Approximate cost: A gallon of paint for the front door will cost as little as $25. Metal house numbers can be purchased for less than $4 each, while a potted mini evergreen like boxwood or a dwarf Alberta Spruce could run you less than $20.

Read The Full Article “8 Budget Curb Appeal Projects” Here

You would be surprised at how much just painting the front door can change the look and feel of your property. The entire article from HGTV is full of very inexpensive ways to help boost your overall curb appeal. There is good info in there about cleaning the driveway, walkways as well as the house itself.

Make The Yard As Pretty And Beautiful As Possible

When it comes to the yard itself there is the obvious, mow the lawn and trim up the hedges. Put the kids toys away and clean up any debris. And don’t forget about the side of the house as well as the backyard.

Depending on what time of year it is you can also plant some inexpensive flowers that are blooming for that season. If you need some ideas about what to plant you can ask your local home improvement store or nursery. Houzz also has some good tips on figuring out what to plant:

Look at what’s nearby. An excellent way to find planting ideas for your yard is to look around your neighborhood and see what is already growing — or take a walk in a nearby natural area, if you’re looking to grow native plants. Friends and neighbors are growing in the same, or similar, conditions as you are, and they can tell you which plants, or combinations of plants, do well in their yards.

With resources like Houzz, you can also see which plants do well in your area by looking online. Filter landscape photos by region to see which plants grow in your area. If you can’t readily get a plant ID from the designer, tap an online forum or network, or bring photos of what you like to a nursery with knowledgeable staff. They may be able to help you identify those plantings.

Read The Full Article “How to Find the Best Plants for Your Yard” Here

Just taking the time to drive around your neighborhood as well as nearby subdivisions can give you some excellent ideas. If you don’t know what something is you can always politely compliment the homeowner on there landscaping and ask questions.

Conclusion

Making the front of your house clean and dazzling will most definitely help you bring in a buyer fast for your property. With very little cash and some elbow grease anyone can get these things done. When you think you have it looking really nice, ask your friends or neighbors what they think. They may spot something that you totally overlooked.

Remember, if you don’t want to do anything to your house and sell it as is, contact us, Mandich Property Group. We buy houses fast in any condition, without you having to do a single thing to your property.