As you’re getting ready to sell your Baltimore-area home, it’s important to make sure your home is in tip-top shape, ready to impress every potential buyer who comes through your doors. While Yahoo Real Estate has a checklist of everything you need to fix before you sell your house, there are five major tips you need to look at immediately.

1) It starts when they see your house. Fill in any bare or brown patches on your lawn, make sure the bushes are trimmed, and leaves are raked. We’ve all heard the term “curb appeal.” Basically, if your home looks unkempt or boring on the outside, potential buyers have already made up their mind about what they’ll see on the inside.

If you’re selling during the winter, make sure the driveway and walkways are shoveled.

2) The carpets need to be spotless. This may mean steam cleaning, this may just mean vacuuming. We recommend steam cleaning to our Baltimore real estate clients, especially if they have pets. It’s important that you eliminate any odors, especially pet odors. While you may not be able to smell it, your potential buyers can sniff it out as soon as they step in the house. You will also want to replace any worn carpeting or stained areas. Carpet professionals can cut out worn and stained patches and replace them, although if your carpet is too old, the patch will show. Consider replacing the entire carpet then.

3) Fix the place up, but fix it up for yourself. If you’re going to redecorate, paint, or repair anything, do it to your satisfaction. Don’t try to predict what someone is going to like, how they’ll use it, or what “the market” likes. Fix it to your satisfaction. But at the same time, don’t fix a problem just so it will last through the sales process. A cover-up “fix” can create bigger problems. In some cases, you may be required to fix a problem if you never really fixed it in the first place, even if the sales is completed.

4) Clean up EVERYTHING. This means, no clutter, no trinkets, no piles of stuff. For one thing, even neat piles of papers and books still looks like clutter to someone who doesn’t understand your organization style. Second, you need to get rid of as many of your personal items as you can. Put them in storage, or pack them up in a box in the garage. You want people to imagine themselves living in your house, and they can’t do that with your photos, art, and collections around the house.

5) Fill, paper, and paint any cracks, peels, and chips. You may have gotten used to seeing the tiny crack in the wall, but home buyers will think “is it structural damage?” Peeling wallpaper may be one of those nuisances you’ve grown accustomed to, but home buyers will see neglect and wonder what else is wrong. Have a friend who will be honest tell you what they would fix. He or she will point out the peeling wall paper, chipped or fading paint, and any cracks that you need to fix. Repaint any outdated colors with a more neutral color like beige or tan.

These are just a few areas that you should take care of. The Yahoo checklist will have everything you want to consider, but these are the five areas to fix before you even consider calling a realtor to sell your Baltimore-area home.

There are a lot of factors to consider when you’re buying a new home in the Baltimore area. While the house must meet your specifications and needs, picking the ideal house means thinking outside the yard. You need to look at the neighborhood, and make sure it’s the right one for you. There are six factors any new home buyer should consider.
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Every facet of our society is becoming increasingly mobile. Even when we’re trying to buy a new home in the Baltimore area — that one place we’re going to stay for years — our search has gone mobile too. Here’s a quick look at what our clients are using to find out about the homes they’re interested in.
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We’re beginning to see the Baltimore housing market show signs of recovery, when you look at home sales from last year. Many of my fellow real estate professionals attribute this to the $8,000 first-time home buyers federal tax credit. The tax credit expired on April 30 of this year, but was recently extended to September 30 (with restrictions; see below). The credit also carried us into a strong home sales season, starting with May, which is traditionally our strongest month.

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