As we enter into winter and the thick of the holiday season, real estate transactions traditionally tend to slow down. However, that doesn’t mean that homes aren’t on the mind of many.
With more time being spent at home with family and hosting gatherings, your home’s shortcomings might begin to become more apparent and your desire to sell could very well increase during this time of year.
Whether that sounds like you or you’ve made your mind up some time ago it’s time to go, then these are a few things you can do right now to prepare your home for sale while staying warm indoors, even if you don’t plan on listing it on the market until things heat up again.
1. Update Your Bathroom
One of the best indoor home renovations you can undertake during the wintertime is upgrading your bathroom. This is because bathrooms are both tucked away indoors and most single-family homes have two or more to rely on while one is being renovated.
Additionally, bathroom upgrades don’t necessarily need to be among the most expensive or time-consuming as other renovations — like in your kitchen, for example. And if you can go about your bathroom update without needing to move or reposition any major pieces (like your sink, toilet, shower, or bathtub), then the project becomes all the more streamlined.
To help make your bathroom sparkle again, we recommend smaller-scale renovations like laying down new wall and floor tiles, installing a more modern vanity, updating your toilet to a newer model, and switching out any dated cabinetry with a sleeker storage system.
From there, more superficial upgrades include hanging up shelving systems for increased storage, changing out shower heads for more stylish ones, and swapping well-used shower curtains with a new set (if you’ve got shower curtains, of course).
The first step to starting every successful home sale is to learn about the current market value of your home. Whether you want to list your home for sale tomorrow or next month, start by getting a professional Home Evaluation here.
2. Upgrade Dated Flooring
Most flooring updates require you to move out for the duration of the renovation, which is far less than ideal in the middle of the coldest time of year. While we’re not advising you to do that, what you can do is update dated flooring in low-traffic areas of your home that don’t see much use — and, more importantly, don’t require you to temporarily move out of your home.
Rooms like your basement, powder room, or laundry room are usually among the last places in your home to be upgraded as they’re generally out of sight for much of the time. For this reason, it’s easy for many homeowners to somewhat neglect upgrading things like the flooring in those parts of the home.
If you’ve got an unfinished basement or laundry room floor, or your powder room still has that awful old tile that was there when you first moved in, now’s the time to take on the project of upgrading them to something nicer. And, preferably something that matches the flooring throughout the rest of your home too, or at least the same flooring the rest of the rooms on that level have.
With the holidays right around the corner, it’s time to start putting up some festive decorations around your home. For a bit of decorating inspiration, here are 5 Unique Holiday Decorating Tips.
3. Apply A Fresh Coat Of Paint
No matter what time of year you prepare your home for sale, we always recommend you repaint the interior walls of your home. Not only does this help give your home a massive fresh, clean feeling, but painting inside can also make your home appear larger, brighter, and airier too.
Along with a fresh new coat of paint, it’s worth it to apply some simple colour theory to your walls as well. Generally speaking, lighter colours like white or one of the endless variations of off-white will work to make rooms appear visually bigger and more spacious, as well as brighter.
As natural or artificial light bounces off of light walls, rooms look lighter and more open. If you want to add depth to a certain room and make one wall look further away than it actually is, paint that one particular wall a contrasting dark colour — maybe a tasteful grey or navy blue. This is called an accent wall, and the practice is best used in smaller spaces that lack any real depth.
Looking for more advice on how to prepare your home for sale? Let our guide on Everything You Need To Know About Preparing Your Home for Sale lead the way.
4. Address Your Lighting Situation
Your home’s interior lighting is always important to pay attention to, but even more so in the winter when the amount of natural daylight we get is at its least. And because of this, any parts of your home that are lacking in luminary assistance become much more apparent in the winter too.
No matter what time of year it is, you want your home to be well illuminated, especially if you plan on selling your home in the near future. So, use winter’s low light to your advantage and target any areas of your home that are perennially dark, like long hallways, room corners, staircases, or closets.
Whether this means buying a statement floor lamp, installing some extra pot lights, hanging up a new sconce, or just changing out your older bulbs for brighter, more energy-efficient ones, use this opportunity to introduce more light to your home’s interior.
Once you’ve addressed any glaring places that could use some more light, you can then go about tactically placing accent lighting that will work to complement areas that, while already lit, could be enhanced with some extra lighting. We’re talking about placing string lights or battery-operated pot lights in places like the underside of your kitchen cabinets, above your wardrobe, or any other high-up, otherwise hidden places in your home.
Want more value-adding tips on how to prepare your home for sale and maximize its market value? Use these to your advantage:
- 7 Small Improvements To Make Before Showing Your Home
- Here Are 5 Value-Boosting Home Upgrades You Can Do Now
5. Patch Up Pesky Drafts
One of the worse things you can feel while sitting in your home over the winter is a cool draft running through your home, and unfortunately, winter is precisely the season when they become most apparent.
As far as drafts go, it’s always the same group of culprits that let winter’s cold air and blustery winds into your home — the frames around your doors and windows, and sometimes your chimney too. The good thing is, fixing any drafty gaps around your windows and doors is a relatively easy job.
All you need to do is identify which portals those drafts are coming from and then either apply a weatherstrip to them or buy a caulking gun and re-caulk from the outside. Not only will this stop your home from feeling so cold all the time, but it’ll actually end up saving you money on your monthly utility bills from needing to over-heat your home.
Are you determined to sell your home for its full potential value in the near future? With our experienced team guiding you through the process, we can help ensure you get every dollar possible from your sale. Read more about our approach to selling here, then schedule a one-on-one selling consultation with our team.
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