The old adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is never more applicable than with home sales. Home buyers want to be “wowed” at first sight by your place—anything less is likely to turn them off.

Fortunately, there is a lot you can do yourself to impress potential buyers. Some improvements, like repairing serious plumbing leaks or updating electrical work, may require professional help. But most projects, like getting rid of clutter and cleaning, you’ll be able to tackle yourself.

Investing muscle, and a little money, will pay big dividends when it comes time to put your place on the market. An attractive home yields more interested buyers and increases the likelihood you’ll get offers close to—or above—your asking price.

Homebuyers are attracted to homes that are bright, spacious, and clean. Though you can’t change your home’s layout to make it bigger, you can easily make it sparkle.

Unless you’re content to accept less than the market value for your home, get ready to invest some time and energy readying your home for sale.

Think a little clean up doesn’t matter? Think again. Although you may be totally comfortable living with dirty dishes piled high in the sink and kids’ toys strewn about the house, a disheveled house suggests to buyers that you haven’t been taking care of the place. No one wants to move into a home that has not been maintained properly or regularly. And even if they can see past the dirt and items needing repair, they’re going to offer you far less to take on those projects themselves.

Your challenge is to look at your property with the eye of a buyer. Try and take a step back, or ask a friend or neighbor to help you, and tour your home as buyers will. What stands out? What are any negatives they may spot? Where does your eye go as you enter each room? What do you smell as you first enter the home? Be ruthless.

Your goal is not to show your house as you’ve lived in it, but to show your house in the best possible light—so it will sell. There’s a difference. And when selling your home, the littlest things can matter most.

To ensure you’re covering all your bases, or uncovering all your eyesores, use this handy checklist as you tour your home:

Improvements Checklist

As you enter each room, what is your first impression? What could you do to improve the room’s appearance? And what would make the space seem bigger or brighter?

You’ve just drafted your basic to-do list.

“People who are buying a home are comparing available homes on the market.

Sellers should, too,” says James Thomas Webb, CEO of CitiRise Redevelopment Corp. in Weston, Florida. Webb, who has decades of experience buying and refurbishing homes for investment purposes, strongly recommends that sellers look at comparable homes on the market to see what kinds of improvements will yield the best return. Before you go replacing perfectly good plumbing fixtures or installing a new high-end sink, find out what the standards are for your neighborhood.

For example, look for information about the type of flooring in area homes—is it hardwood, linoleum, tile, or carpeting? Do the homes have central air? What kinds of kitchen appliances are frequently mentioned? Are they Kenmore, GE, or Viking? And what kind of countertop is common? Do most homes have laminate, Corian, or granite? Make sure you’re comparing apples-to-apples in terms of home features so you can spot the strengths and weaknesses of your home. One tool for finding like homes in your area is www.forsalebyowner.com.

To learn what features homes in your area have, turn to your local Multiple Listing Services (MLS) website. For instance, in Rochester, New York, www.homesteadnet.comlists all homes in the area for sale with complete descriptions and photos (see the figure that follows). If you can’t find an online source with local real estate listings, you can purchase a list of comparable properties at www.forsalebyowner.com/appraisalsfor between $5 and $30. This information also will help you determine an appropriate price for your home.

Researching what most homes feature will help you assess where your home may fall short in a buyer’s eyes. And that’s where you should start your improvement efforts in order to get the biggest bang for your buck.

The initial decision to look at your home is frequently made based on its outward appearance. Some buyers will do a “drive-by” to scope out the exterior of your home. And based on its curb appeal—what they see from the street—they’ll decide whether or not to go inside.

Assuming your home is already in decent structural shape, there are many things you can do to spiff up its appearance.

Improving your home’s exterior appearance may take a little effort, but if you’ve been keeping up with needed repairs, it shouldn’t be very involved.

A fresh coat of paint is always a good idea, especially if the home’s wood siding is chipped or peeling. If you have aluminum siding, soapy water or a professional pressure wash will help get rid of built-up dirt and dust.

A doorway that stands out is also a plus, so consider giving it a fresh coat of paint, or wash, too. Torn window or door screens should be replaced, which isn’t hard to do, and windows should be cleaned.

If you have a front porch or landing, clean it off and make it more inviting, such as with a small chair or table with flowers. Or if you’ve been using it as a storage area, clear it out.

Flowers and plants add charm and life to a front stoop or door, but don’t go overboard. Too much of anything is distracting and causes a cluttered appearance.

Seasonal decorations, such as holiday lights strung across the roofline or fabric ghosts hanging from nearby trees, should be taken down. Again, it’s just too distracting.

Spending a little time to make your yard neat and clean is also worth it. Some buyers have told us they have refused to even enter homes with overgrown or unkempt yards. The house may have been neat-as-a-pin inside, but the yard full of tall grass and weeds was a major turnoff.

Here are some of the simplest things to do to get your yard ship-shape:

Your lawn may not make or break a sale, but a clean, neat one will add to the overall positive image of your home.

Although home improvements generally increase the overall value of your home, some improvements are better than others. The average amount recouped from home improvement projects in 2004 was 80.3 percent, according to Remodeling magazine’s “Cost vs. Value Report,” which is down slightly from the 2003 average of 86.4 percent. That means for every $1,000 invested in improvements, homeowners earned back an average of $803.

Remodeling magazine reports the following national averages for the top 15 home improvements in 2004:

If you’re not up for one of these major renovations, take heart. You can significantly improve the appeal of your home without adding another bathroom or increasing the square footage of the home.

Beyond making repairs, it often pays to update home fixtures. Even if older features still work well, buyers are more likely to appreciate new home trimmings than old. For example, a new, white elongated toilet base and seat is worth much more than the $160 it costs to buy and install, when compared with the existing 1960s-era peach-colored unit with ratty seat.

Kitchens and baths matter most to buyers, say the pros, so any investment in new or upgraded features can boost the appeal of your home right off the bat. Webb of CitiRise advises evaluating your existing:

If you find from your research that other area homes have one or more features that your home is lacking, focus on finding upgrades that look like, but don’t cost like, more expensive accessories. For example, swapping out an older lime green laminate refrigerator with a new stainless steel replacement, but not necessarily a top-of-the-line SubZero model. Or exchanging a very traditional kitchen faucet with a modern, more contemporary one; buying a high-end-looking faucet instead of a $600+ authentic, imported European one.

Although market conditions and housing prices vary widely, Webb has found that, on average, he can perform the most important upgrades on a 2,000 sq. ft. home for under $5,500. That includes $2,000 for new carpeting, $1,800 for kitchen and bath upgrades, and $1,200 to have a pro repaint the home, with a $400 budget for paint.

Buyers ask themselves three major questions when they tour a home, explains Julie Dana of TheHomeStylist.com. They want to know:

To help buyers answer these questions affirmatively, your home needs to be decorated and arranged in a particular way. This process is called staging or home or property enhancement.

Dana offers the following staging tips to make the best impression on buyers:

And don’t just relocate everything to somewhere else in the house—you need to get it off-site, or at least out of site. Depending on how much stuff you have, a local self-storage facility is a good option. If that doesn’t work for you, try and contain everything in one area, either in the basement, attic, or garage. If you determine that you don’t want to move a lot of it, hold a garage sale or donate it to a nonprofit (ask them to pick it up).

Before: Reduce visible items. (Photo by Julie Dana of The Home Stylist)

After: A cleaner look. (Photo by Julie Dana of The Home Stylist)

For many homes, these basic clean-up steps may be enough. The key is to clear out anything that interferes with a buyer’s ability to picture themselves living there.

Hiring a pro to stage your home can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars, with the return on that investment estimated to be two to three times the cost, says Neal Hribar, a California-based property enhancement professional. But by following these recommendations, you should be able to tackle many of the enhancements yourself.

Buyers have fears about buying a home. Is it the right one? Is it big enough? Are we paying too much? Will we like it? Will something major go wrong with it right after we buy it? You can’t alleviate many of these concerns, but you can remove the risk of major repairs by purchasing a home warranty. At a cost of around $400, you can make your home more attractive to buyers. According to a Gallop Poll, eight out of 10 buyers would prefer to buy a warranted home over an unwarranted one.

Home warranties are attractive for several reasons, besides attracting more buyers:

Many real estate agents are now including home warranties as part of the package they offer sellers. Nearly nine out of every 10 existing home sales on the West Coast includes a home warranty, reports the Warranty Association of California, which suggests you may be at a disadvantage without one.

So what do you do when you fear your home’s appearance may scare away buyers? Follow the advice of fashionistas everywhere: downplay the negatives and highlight the positives.

Every home has its pros and cons—some are just more obvious from the road. If that’s the case with your place, you’ll want to do everything you can to improve your home’s worst feature. And there is always something you can do.

If your home’s worst side is visible from the street, you can either try and cover it up, or draw buyers’ attention away from it. For example, if your home is a 12th floor condo with windows all facing the backside of a rundown industrial plant, you’ll want to keep everyone’s attention on the interior. Use beautiful window treatments with sheer curtains to cover up the view without blocking the light. On the other hand, if you live in a house with a bleak, unattractive front yard, you have a little more control over the environment. You may choose to punch up the color on the house or the trim, as well as add a few bushes or trees to liven the space. If the architecture is hideous, there is little you can do to fix it. However, you can cover it, by installing window awnings, for instance, or adding some tall bushes and vines.

Look for ways to play up your home’s best aspects, too, whether it’s the size of the yard, the ample sunlight that flows through the house, the newly renovated kitchen, or cozy fireplace. Draw attention to whatever you believe is the home’s biggest selling point; that may be as obvious as hardwood floors throughout, or as intangible as being in the best school district around.

If you have no trouble drawing buyers in, but they’re turned off by an aspect of the home’s interior, our advice is the same—play up the positives, cover the negatives. For example, if the home seems dark, stock up on white paint and give all the rooms a facelift. Or install additional lighting wherever you can. If your home is energy efficient, or is part of a municipal utility, and has below average utility costs, set your monthly utility statements on the kitchen counter to catch the eye of fiscally responsible buyers coming through. If it seems small for the square footage quoted, take out more furniture, remove wall hangings and artwork—don’t worry about it looking bare. Err on the side of empty.

Remember, all you need is one buyer, one person or family, who falls in love with your place.

For more information about topics covered in this chapter, check out the following websites:

The Least You Need to Know