Getting your NYC apartment ready for sale involves a whole lot more than just staging. Putting your home on the market means you’re going to have to create a little bit of magic — you’re going to have to turn your home into a prospective buyers’ dream home. You’ve probably heard this advice a million times, but it’s true: In order to make your home palatable to buyers, you have to erase yourself from the equation. You don’t have to make the space boring, but you have to make it something that appeals to as broad a range of people as possible.
Clean It!
Some people think “cleaning a home for sale” is giving it a simple wash-down, but no, no, no. Remember, you are creating a canvas that people are going to try and paint their lives onto. They want to imagine themselves in your bathroom and in your kitchen and sleeping in your bedrooms. The last thing you want to do is present a muddy, soiled, or shoddy canvas. Your place needs to feel sanitized and completely clean. It’s basically impossible for someone to yearn to live in your home if it’s covered with a layer of grime. Bathroom and kitchen grime is particularly icky. This is one of those times where hiring a cleaning service may be a great investment. Because you live in your home all the time, you may have become immune to the deep down dirt and odors that visitors would pick up on immediately. A cleaning service can come in and do a deep-down clean that you can then maintain yourself. It’d be worth it to do this on a monthly until the apartment sells. Yelp has a bazillion cleaning service reviews, but one that seems to get across-the-board top ratings is Wizard of Homes! Don’t forget to clean your closets; some people will look inside.
Make Repairs You’ve Been Putting Off
The broken latch on the that kitchen cabinet — the one you think no one is paying attention to? Well, they are. People look at things like shoddy paint jobs, cabinets that need repairs, and leaky faucets and assume that these seemingly mundane issues hide bigger problems. If they think that’s the case, they’re less likely to cough up the cash. It doesn’t matter if you live in a nice condo or co-op. If people think your apartment is shoddy, they may not look as favorably on the building.
Staging It for Everyone
Everyone who knows you may know that you’re a hardcore Brony whose home is decorated in a Twilight Sparkle-esque violet-colored theme complete with wallpaper, and by all accounts it’s fierce. It may be too fierce, however, for the parents from Idaho who are buying a space for their only daughter as she moves to the city after finishing up her graduate teaching program. Tone it down; paint your walls neutral tones like grey or white. They’re soothing and welcoming tones that can welcome people of all different sensibilities. A few personal touches can keep you from feeling like you’re living in a hotel, but restrain the urge to go wild.
Image Source: Flickr/Eli Duke
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