So, there you sit looking at your current home and thinking to yourself, “This home just isn’t working for me anymore. Maybe it’s time to move??”
You call your favorite real estate agent (such as myself 😉) to get set up with an online search, so you can start perusing available homes that you like. You start to get excited seeing houses that will offer everything your current home lacks, but then as you look around your current home again, reality hits.
All the projects you have put off for weeks, months, or maybe even years need to finally get done in order to sell your home with ease for top dollar.
Like many, I’ve been in this situation before and the excitement of a new home quickly diminishes when the stress of what seems to be never ending projects starts to build.
When I was getting ready to sell my first home, the list of projects was overwhelming!
Replace the carpet, patch the walls and paint the living room, the kitchen, the kids’ bedroom, the accent wall in the master bedroom, touch up the bathroom (ahem, just for the record, that was the entire main level of the home), replace the kitchen cabinet door that had broken off 2 years prior (wouldn’t want to rush into a project like that), replace the rotting boards around the playset in the backyard, clean up the landscaping, not to mention all of the de-cluttering and cleaning that needed to be done…ugh!!
How would I ever get all of this done in a timely manner to get my house on the market??
Needless to say, I was a very crabby and stressed mom and wife for about a month before I was finally able to check everything off my list.
By the time I was done, the house looked AMAZING! I finally had paint colors and décor on the walls that I loved! Living in that home could have been so much more enjoyable had I done all that work as it came up and needed to be done versus waiting.
The worst part is after doing all the work in that house, a year later, and I still don’t have the motivation or energy to want to paint and decorate my “new” home.
The lesson here is simple—doing regular maintenance and updates are key!
Don’t wait until you want to move to fix that leaky faucet; fix it at the first sign of a leak. Not only will this be one less thing to have to stress about in the future, it could also save you on what could end up being a much more involved repair such as mold in your wall from years of neglecting that leaky faucet…and did I mention the mold was probably discovered during the home inspection??
Now, instead of having a seamless sale, you have a HUGE problem to try and fix to keep the sale in place.
Also, don’t wait to change that paint color that was popular 10 years ago that you’ve cringed looking at everyday for the last 9 years. Take a weekend and just do it so you can actually enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Keep up with the clutter by having a garage sale each spring and make a couple extra bucks so you can go out and buy new things…that you will then sell in next years garage sale (it’s a vicious, never-ending cycle)!
Had I kept up with my home’s regular maintenance I could have saved myself not only the stress of getting everything done in one fail swoop, but also the stress of having to fund all the repairs at once.
Now, to take my own advice, I’m headed to the store for paint samples! Wish me luck!