The spring market is quickly approaching and is typically a very busy time in the real estate market. It’s a great time to list your home and it’s a great time buy as you will have more options.

Selling your home is indeed about marketing. Think about your buying decisions; a well packaged product can instill confidence, highlight the key factors you’re looking for or stand out from the crowd. House hunting is no exception. People can sometimes look at dozens of homes in a single day so you need to be memorable.

Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of bad home presentations over the years so in anticipation of the spring market, here are some helpful tips:

• Clean and uncluttered!  How you present your home is critical in having it sell faster and for more money. A clean home which is uncluttered allows people to see the 4 walls and materials within – it allows them to see themselves living there, place their own furniture in place of yours and get emotionally attached. If you don’t spend the time doing this, prospective buyers get distracted. Rather than seeing the home for what it is, they may see a lack of space or storage. If it’s overly cluttered, people may see a home that is not well taken care or they may just comment on your furniture because they can’t see anything else. Be critical of your living space or have a trustworthy friend offer a 3rd party’s insight as sometimes we don’t notice things in our own home because we’re used to it.

• Life stage!  Think about where you were in your life when you originally bought that home. If you’re selling because you just had a baby and need to move up, it may be worth it to visually lessen the baby impact during showings so that you can help them see how prospective buyers would live in it rather than get distracted by baby toys and diaper genies.

• A picture says a thousand words!  Buyers are spending hours looking online at MLS data and photos before they even visit their first open house these days. They want to see as many photos as possible online and as much information as they can. If you don’t have any photos, you can pretty much cut your market in half because some won’t even bother showing up to the open house. Put up bad photos and you can have the same result. Prepare your home for selling and spend the time (and maybe the money) to take good photos that show off your home well.

• The Follow Through!  Once you’ve wooed them with your online photos and convinced them to attend an open house or make an appointment, ensure you keep your home in the best possible condition for all viewings. Don’t let them down once you’ve gotten them in the door. If you’ve got renters in your space, this task is more difficult as you don’t have full control but depending on the state of the space, losing a month of rent to show the space off properly may save you money if it means selling your home faster and possibly even for more money.

The good news is a lot of people (and shockingly realtors) can do this badly or have a hard time getting their clients to heed this advice. So if you remember these tips and work with your realtor you should already be one step ahead of much of the competition.

Suzana Goncalves