Are Maintenance and Repairs Important Before Selling a Property?

If you are considering the involved and exciting task of selling your property, there is a lot to keep in mind. Not only do you need to deal with your real estate agent and potential buyers, but you need to ensure that you are prepared financially, are ready to move out when necessary, and most importantly that your property is in a condition that maximizes its value.

The Benefits of Home Maintenance

This is where the question arises – are maintenance and repairs important before selling a property? Any potential buyers of your home are far more likely to make the purchase, and at a higher price, if the home is in good condition. People do not want to be buying homes that require work to be done – they value convenience and time, and are willing to pay for it.

Making repairs of essential home areas, namely ones that a buyer is likely to notice immediately, will ensure that home inspections go smoothly and that your agent can be confident in making the sale. On the other hand, a more extensive home renovation can be expensive and intensive and does not guarantee appeal from potential buyers.

With this in mind, there are a number of maintenance and repair tasks that you should complete before selling your property, with some being easier than others.

The Maintenance Areas to Focus On

Once you have decided that maintenance is the right approach to preparing your home for sale, you will need to determine where you want to focus your efforts. Home maintenance is a broad topic that encompasses a number of potential tasks, whether they involve making visual improvements and updates, maintaining the structure of your home itself, or conducting an overview of utilities and safety features.

The first area you might want to consider is regarding visual and aesthetic fixes. Whilst other areas are equally as important within the overall process, visual aspects are the most noticeable in the mind of a home buyer, and should be addressed comprehensively – they are often easy fixes that can have a huge impact on home presentation and sale. With this being said, you should make sure that you do not make any major visual changes that might cater to a specific style or aesthetic. Sticking to a style that is on-trend and appeals to a wide audience will ensure that your home retains a maximized appeal to buyers. You can hire a contractor for these tasks (for things like wall crack repairs and intensive cleaning tasks), however many can also be done by yourself – knowing how to plan a room, conducting general cleaning and oiling decks are examples of this.

Next, you want to be sure that your home is structurally sound. This is an obvious area of importance due to the safety that it provides, and a good place to start is with a building inspection. This will include areas such as the roof and walls of your home and will highlight areas that require maintenance. In particular, looking at long term solutions to damp, fixes to subsidence, and fixing wall cracks will prolong the life of your home and minimize the extent of any future problems. Another possible action to take here may be to enlist the help of a termite and pest inspector.

Finally, you should undertake an overview of the utilities and other safety features within your home. This might include electrical and plumbing, as well as smoke detectors and security cameras. Ensuring that these all work as intended will add to the appeal of your home significantly, as buyers are confident that the home is in good condition. For a better understanding of what you might want to focus on, consider the viewpoint of a home buyer.

Is Any Maintenance Better Left Alone?

If you are constrained by time or budget, you might not be able to conduct significant maintenance and repairs of your home. While it is important that you fix up the property as much as possible, there are some areas in which you might be able to benefit from less or no change. For example, while maximizing the visual appeal of your home is extremely important before making a sale, making significant visual changes in the appearance of your home can throw buyers off. This is most notable in painting, regarding both the interior and exterior of your home. Repainting your home can be a great way to renew the feel of your home, but you need to ensure that you are going with a style that appeals to as many people as possible (as mentioned earlier). Like other maintenance tasks, if you do end up repainting your home, consider learning how to paint walls within your home – it can save you money and give you creative control regarding what you do.

Furthermore, depending on your situation, it might be best to avoid more extensive renovations and remodeling. Whilst redoing your kitchen or bathrooms can be a good undertaking in certain situations, it will come down to the current state of the areas within your home, and whether or not they really need significant change. You should also keep in mind that you won’t be able to benefit from your renovations and that renovating to fit your needs does not mean that the buyer of your home will have the same requirements.

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