5 Cleaning tips to prep your house to sell
Calling your favorite real estate agent is only part of the selling process. One of the biggest parts of selling your house is cleaning and prepping the house to show. Warner Robins Georgia housing is growing in inventory. As we move back to a more normal housing market in Warner Robins, it will be a little harder to compete with other houses for sale. Try these tricks to make sure your house for sale is ready for every nose and pair of eyes that come thru.
Out with the old house (smells)
Find the smells
Believe it or not, “nose blind” is a real thing. Buyers will pick up on bad smells that you may not notice as soon as they walk in. Come back to your house after being gone a couple days. If your house has odors that are outside the “normal acceptable range”, you will notice. Leaving your house for a couple days will also give you a better of what needs to be cleaned. Also, find a trusted friend that will be honest to find what smells need cleaning.
Attack the smells
If the smells are coming from carpet or soft flooring (like wood), It may require a couple days coated in baking soda. If that doesn’t work, next step would be a professional floor cleaner. Last option would be replacing he flooring.
A common problem we see are bad smells in the garage (grease, gas, dog, cat, Husband, etc.) Since this part of the house can be cleaned with heavier chemicals, a good start would be “purple power” and a pressure washer. This may take a while, but will get into all the cracks you don’t see. If the garage still smells bad, try regular Lysol or water mixed with a bottle of straight lemon juice. Citric acid is a good cleaner and a welcome smell to most buyers. Lysol already uses Lemon juice, so you would just be adding more to it.
What they don’t see (in the house) won’t hurt you
Clean the big areas of your house
Of course, every house needs cleaning before it is sold on the retail market. Buyers like to feel like they are the first people in the house they are buying (Or at least want the house to look that way). Cleaning walls and tubs are a must. These are the most seen items and (many times) are the least successfully cleaned.
Walls have crayon and kids hand prints (didn’t think of selling the house when you let them write on the walls, did you?). “Purple power” or “simple green” are great de-greasers. Add a cup to a half gallon of water and dip a Swiffer scrub mop in it (any mop handle with a very light scrub pad will work). Use this damp, not wet.
*Most houses are painted with a flat paint to hide flaws. Flat paint can wash off easy.
Clean the kitchens and Bathrooms
Cleaning your house to sell includes the really dirty areas too. The kitchen and bathrooms need a lot of attention before selling your house. If normal cleaning does not make these areas as pretty as you like, hit the hard areas with 50/50 water and Lysol toilet bowl cleaner.
*Lysol toilet bowl cleaner is good for hard surfaces (Tile, ceramic, glass, metal and hard plastic), but don’t use it on soft plastic and wood (Did a great job on my boat hull).
Cleaning a plastic tub and sinks with a magic eraser will clean better than you might think. If that does not work, grab some rubber gloves and try Lysol toilet bowl cleaner. It is a Mild acid. Let it sit for half an hour, then wash off while using the eraser (again, it’s a mild acid, use gloves and eye covering).
Grandmom’s vinegar tricks
Just like using “coke” for real dirty laundry (bonus trick for you), vinegar is another lost art from grandma’s time. Like Lysol, vinegar is a mild acid with many uses. Prep your house for sale with these tricks.
- Windows clean streak free with vinegar on a newspaper. It evaporates clean and the newspaper is lint free.
- Remove shower and faucet heads. Soak them in vinegar for a day or two. Any calcium or scale will be gone.
Prepping your house to sell is not hard with the right tools. Make sure to contact us when you are ready to sell and we will do the rest. For more real estate information, click here
Please leave a comment. What did you think? Do you have something to add? Share your experience and share this page!!
Learn more about Keller Williams
This is great information. I use a lot of vinegar throughout my home to remove the heavy cleaning smell and it works very effectively. I may add that an ozone treatment at the end of a cleaning with help reduce the VOCs in the air to sanitize a home properly. Ozone is the 2nd most powerful sterilant in the world and is chemical-free to remove bacteria and viruses. If anyone is wanting a consultation on an ozone treatment, feel free to reach out to me.
Thanks for the information Brialle.