10 Inexpensive Ways to prepare your home to sell

1. New Electrical Switch Plates
   This is such a minor, yet overlooked improvement. Most rental owners and rehabbers paint a unit and leave the old, ugly switch plates. Even worse, some even paint over them.

   New switch plates cost about 20 cents each. You can replace the entire house with new switch plates for about $20. if the outlets and switches are dirty you might spring to replace those too. Nice white faceplates with dirty brown outlets defeats the purpose

1. New or Improved Doors
   Another overlooked, yet cheap replacement item is doors. If you have ugly brown doors, replace them with nice white doors (you can paint them, but unless you have a spray gun it will take you three coats by hand).

   The basic hollow-core door is about $20. It comes pre-primed and pre-hung. For about $10 more, you can buy stylish six-panel doors. If you are doing a rehab, the extra $10 per door is well worth-it. For rentals, consider at least changing the downstairs doors.

1. New Door Handles
   If you don’t want to change the doors, you can also change the doorknobs. I would actually recommend this route to save money and connects the whole house together.

1. Paint
   By far the most important factor when selling a home. Get rid of the baby room colors, go for what is in style…mostly neutrals or light earth tones. The return on investment for a can a paint is the absolute smartest thing you can do.

1. New Front Door
   You only get one chance to make a first impression. A cheap front door makes a house look cheap. An old front door makes a house look old. If you have nice heavy door, paint it a bold color using a high-gloss paint. If your front door is old, consider replacing it with a new, stylish door. For about $125, you can buy a very nice door.

1. Tile the floors
   I know this sounds like a lot of work, but it is worth it. If you do not want to tile, and go with either a pergo flooring or linoleum that’s fine. Bottom line is, if the floor looks bad and worn you should replace it. If you replace it, you should tile it.

1. Refinish the kitchen cabinets
   Whether you are cleaning them up or repainting them, fresh kitchen cabinets will help the house move faster and for a higher price. We are lucky that now with stores like IKEA we can easily add new cabinets for relatively low prices and they look fabulous. If you paint them, make sure you do a good job, get good brushes or paint sprayers and take your time. Nothing looks worse then poorly painted kitchen cabinets.

1. Power wash the exterior
   Go rent a power washer from a tool rental company and give the outside of the house a good wash. Be careful not to get too aggressive because you can damage the siding. Once you get all the gunk out of the overhangs. If the home is in bad shape repaint it. Believe me it is worth it.

1. Update the landscape
   Most homeowners love a nice landscape, but most are not very good at maintaining the plants. Over the months and years the plants will grow out of control. You should get rid of them, plant some new fresh flowers and add some ground bark to make the landscape look great. Of course mow the lawns and remove all weeds. Keep the plants watered and if they start to die, return them and get a new one. Most home improvement centers will allow you to return the plants if they die.

1. Remove odors
   Pets, smoke, food all seep into the walls and carpet of homes. Fresh paint and a professionally cleaned carpet will remove most odors and leave the home smelling new. Yes, the smell of paint leaves the potential owners with a feeling of a new home, similar to the new car smell.