Getting Your Home Ready For The Market

In this Real Estate market making sure your home is ready for potential buyers is more important than ever. These days buyers can be really picky and often have the mind set if I'm going to buy a home that has to have work done to it, "I might as well buy a foreclosure or a short sale". What savvy sellers must do is walk the fine line of improving their home without over improving. The reality of today's market is your not going to get a positive return from updating investment. In this link from American Society of Appraisers you will find an appraiser's list of improvements and the rate of return you can expect to get return you can get from your investments. Surprisingly replacing your front door with a new steel door tops the list. In my opinion the most important thing you can do is remodel or update your kitchen although your only going to see about 73% of your money back on this investment, it's the most appealing portion of the home to buyers and can really help move your home.

Some suggestions I have to potential sellers is to not totally gut and redo any portion of your home, but rather enhance the existing aspects of your home in a cost efficient manner. For instance instead of tearing out your existing cabinets, paint them or put a new counter top on top of them, maybe replace the faucet. This way you get a new fresh look on a fraction of the budget of a total kitchen remodel. Another easy thing to do is replace your brass hardware throughout the home with a nice brush nickel or an antique finish. Here is another great link from ask.com who suggest that the first step to selling a home is letting go of your home and disassociate yourself with your home, your home is now a product and must be treated as one.