How Important is Curb Appeal When Selling Your Home? 

First impressions are incredibly important, especially when it comes to selling your home. Strangely enough, many people spend so much time readying the inside of their house for the sale, they forget to make the outside presentable. You may have heard of curb appeal: it’s the visual impression your house makes to anyone viewing it from the street or curb.  

So how important is curb appeal? Extremely important! The idea behind creating curb appeal is to make your house so inviting that the potential buyer will want to stop and see the inside of your house.  

If you spend time on making sure that the exterior of your home is as meticulous as the inside, you will attract more buyers and sell your home faster. 

Here are some tips on how to improve your curb appeal: 

• Keep your property well landscaped. Your grass should be watered and trimmed, your bushes and plants should be pruned and your trees should be free of damaged or dead branches. Watch out for trash and debris and keep both out of your yard. 

• Paint where necessary. Paint is a wonderful thing. It can quickly bring any old object back to life, including shutters and trim on the outside of the house. For a relatively small investment, paint is one of the quickest ways to increase curb appeal. 

• Importance of the porch. Do you have a porch? If you have, it is a very important selling point. Many buyers view a porch as any other room in the house. A clean porch with nice outdoor furniture is a very welcoming feature. 

• Clean doors and windows. Your doors and windows can essentially be thought of as the face of your home, and are some of the first things potential buyers notice as they drive by your house. You can easily boost your curb appeal by washing your windows or replacing them with newer, more modern ones if within your budget. All of the exterior doors should be in good shape, but your front door is the most important as it’s the one people see first. 

• Don’t forget the backyard. Buyers doing a drive by will try their best to see your back yard. If it’s visible from another street or from someone’s driveway, include it in your curb appeal efforts. There is no point sprucing up the front and neglecting the back. 

• Other tips. Make sure your keep the outside of your property clutter free by removing toys and unnecessary furniture. Replace burnt out light bulbs. Keep your house numbers visible and clear. Use a pressure washer to clean the driveway, deck etc. 

It’s difficult to look at your house in the same way that potential homebuyers do, because when you become accustomed to the way something looks and functions, you can’t see its faults. So get some objective advice. 

And don’t forget, once you get the prospective buyer through the door, make sure that the inside is as meticulous as the outside!