The Bartram Team specializes in identifying the important fixes and easy cosmetic changes that make your home "shine" to potential buyers.  Below are some of our Home Staging Preparation Checklist and our Pre-Showing Tips that have proven successful time after time.

• Determine the Return on Investment (ROI) of your Remodeling Project:

  • CNN Money's Renovation Wizard helps you determine if your renovation project will pay off
     

• Update Kitchens, Bathrooms and Master Bedroom Suites: Buyers value updated kitchens, bathrooms, and master bedrooms. Top changes are granite or solid surface countertops instead of laminate, changing out vinyl flooring, updated lighting and updated hardware and faucets. Painting or refinishing cabinetry (or total replacement) is also desirable.

  • HGTV has a great web site with articles and tips on remodeling Kitchens & Baths.

  • Check out this Kitchen Remodeling Budget Estimator tool from HGTV.
     

• Finish Your Unfinished Spaces: If you have an unfinished bonus room, finish it properly (with connection to the central HVAC system) and add closets so it can count as finished square footage.

Many homes in eastern North Carolina have rooms over the garage. If finished, they are called FROGs, or Finished Rooms Over the Garage. Unfinished ones are UFROGs.

You should "jump" at turning an UFROG into a FROG, since this is the easiest way to feel like a prince when you see all the extra money you will make when you sell your home! 
 

• Change out Flooring: Today's tastes have switched to wood floors instead of wall-to-wall carpeting and natural tile or stone instead of dated linoleum or vinyl flooring. If your carpeting is worn, wood laminate is easy to install and relatively cheap, and gives an updated look and increased value. Tile is a must to update bathroom floors.

  • Learn all about choosing, repairing and installing various flooring options on HGTV's web site.

  • View various wood flooring options and design your room with the National Wood Flooring Association's Design a Room tool. 

• Update Your Lighting: Most builders install the plainest, off-the-shelf lighting fixtures possible. Changing out those old brass chandeliers and outside carriage lamps, as well as replacing the typical round-bulb "Hollywood" lighting in the bathrooms with updated sconces, are inexpensive changes that give you a big return.
   

• Change the Paint and Remove Wallpaper: Dark paint colors from the 80's like dark green or burgundy really date your home. Colors that are perceived as too feminine (like pink or purple) or too masculine (like black or navy blue) may turn off buyers of other genders and limit the marketability of your home.

Wallpaper is also considered a definite negative today and will scare off buyers who don't want the perceived work to remove it themselves. A fresh coat of paint in modern, updated paint colors in bright, paler neutrals or earth tones instead of strong colors as well as removing wallpaper and painting will definitely pay off.

• Give each space a clear and appropriate purpose. Buyers expect the standard living spaces of living room, dining room, kitchen, master bedroom, master bathroom, etc. If you are using one of your standard spaces for a non-standard use, you should restore it before you put it on the market. For example, if you are using your dining room for a game room or nursery, you need to restore it to a dining room before buyers see it. Remove toys from a living room; you need a more formal. living space to show to buyers, and the new buyers may not have kids, so you don't want to distract them.

Empty rooms or "junk rooms" are also bad, since buyers will be puzzled as to what the space could be used for. Give each room a practical and non-gender specific use. Add a table, desk lamp and chair to turn an empty room into a home office. Pack up the clutter and borrow a twin bed from a friend or buy an inexpensive inflatable bed with spare linens to make a guest room out of a junk room.

• Increase Your Home's Curb Appeal: If your house isn't attractive from the street buyers won't even go in. We've had many showings planned for homes to have buyers stop us at the street and refuse to enter because "they don't like the look of the house from the outside."

To avoid this, sellers should  remove external clutter, clean up dead leaves or branches,  trim back trees or shrubs that hide your house from the street or make your house look unwelcoming.

Add pots of blooming flowers and a new Welcome Mat to the front door. And in North Carolina, power washing your roof, sides of house and driveway are a must to remove pine sap and pollen that may have built up over time.

Existing homes are competing with new houses; your home needs to shine, outside as well as inside!

• Out of Sight is Out of Mind: Decluttering is critical! Go ahead and pack up half of your stuff. You'll be moving anyway, and too much stuff makes all your spaces look small. Rent temporary storage like PODS where a container is brought to your house for you to fill, then taken away until you need it to move. Buyers will open all doors, including to closets, so make sure you organize your closets. Do NOT stuff your closets and drawers so full that items look like they're falling out! Also, keep items off the floor of closets; it makes them look too small.

• Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Secure any small, loose valuables, like jewelry or money. While the New Bern Board of Realtors requires that all buyers are accompanied by an agent for homes listed in the MLS, it's better to be safe than sorry.

• Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow: Leave when your home is being shown, if possible. We know you love your house, but sellers need to find something to do away from their home during the time of the showing. The presence of an owner makes some buyers uncomfortable and has doomed many a potential sale! Buyers want to be candid with their agent and each other when viewing a home, and the presence of owners tends to make them hurry or fail to ask questions.
  • If you must remain, be courteous, but don't feel the need to make conversation. The buyer's agent knows the buyer's needs so let him or her discuss home features and answer questions.

UNINVITED GUESTS: In the event a buyer just drops by and is not accompanied by an agent, it is best not to show your home. Ask for the prospect's name and phone number and inform them you'll give it to your BARTRAM TEAM listing agent. Besides the safety factor of having unscreened, unaccompanied persons in your home, we are trained to screen inquiries so you do not waste time showing your home to someone who is not qualified to purchase it.