A Miami Realtor’s Guide to Pre-Sale Home Preparation

When you are about six months away from putting your home on the market, it means it’s time to start preparing for showings. This is when any issues that may deter potential buyers or lessen your home’s perceived value need to be identified and resolved. 

To simplify this process, we’ve created a step by step guide for maximizing the appeal of your home. Once you’ve figured out exactly what kind of work needs to be done, everything else – like cleaning and staging – becomes much less stressful. 

Here’s how to get started: 

Schedule a Walk Through Six Months Before Listing Your Home

Step one is to schedule a walk through with your Realtor to identify any reason a buyer wouldn’t want to buy or would negotiate the closing price down. 

This ranges from making sure the little things work correctly, like all the doors and cabinets shut smoothly, to any repairs that were negotiated before you bought the home have been taking care of. We also want to look at the age of your appliances, water heater, roof, when the septic last received maintenance, et cetera. This isn’t to say you need to fix or update all of these, but it gives you time for the ones that you elect to take care of. 

If the home is on the older side, you may consider doing a pre-listing home inspection. This ensures that any important repairs are acknowledged before buyers discover them on their own, which could delay the sale or lead to renegotiations. Having them all listed down before a contract is offered simplifies the closing process significantly. 

Improve Curb Appeal a Month Before Listing

Now that you’ve determined what needs to be improved inside the home, you can do the same thing for the home’s exterior. Are the lawn and bushes neatly manicured? Could the front door use a new coat of paint? Are there any cracks on your front steps or walkway? 

Taking care of the landscaping and exterior of your home a month before listing gives everything a chance to grow back a little to look lush but maintained, the exact first impression you want to make so any buyer can see themselves living in the home.

Deep Clean Two Weeks Before Listing

With any the repairs out of the way, you can move on to making your seller’s home look as clean and open as possible. 

You should go room by room, removing any clutter. It’s a great chance to make the home look bigger and get a jump start on moving by organizing your stuff into what you want to keep, donate, throw out, or sell. 

Once these items have been removed, it’s highly recommended to hire a professional cleaning crew to perform a deep clean. This is certainly something you can do on your own, but a cleaning crew can often do more in a few hours than you can in several days. Professionals will also cover commonly overlooked areas like baseboards, windowsills, and tile grout. 

The Last Touches Before Listing

At this point, you should be ready for photos and opening your doors to buyers. We always encourage our clients at this point to ensure that each room is being used for its intended use (ie that formal dining room that you converted into an office should be moved back to being a formal dining room). If you don’t have the required furniture for that, it may be worth hiring a stager. 

Lastly, make some minor finishing touches to make the home look more welcoming. This includes setting the table, adding a fresh bouquet of flowers to the kitchen, or filling a bowl with fresh fruit on the counter. Potential buyers tend to remember these little details when they leave a showing. 

Are you looking to put your Miami home on the market? If so, now is the time to make an appointment with the Kern Team! With our 25+ years of local expertise, we can carefully guide you through every stage of the preparation process so you don’t get overwhelmed. When the offers start coming in, you’ll know you’ve done everything in your power to achieve your desired price. Reach out to us today so we can start creating a timeline for a successful sale.