Trying to Sell Your Home? Tips for Preparing Your Home for the Market #1: The Kitchen

Are you planning to put your home on the market sometime in the near future? It can certainly be a stressful and nerve-racking process. If you want to get your home sold quickly and at a price that makes you happy, taking the proper steps to prepare it for the market is essential. No room should be left untouched in the process of preparing your home for sale. In this 8-part series, we will explore the various rooms and areas of your home and discuss how you can prepare each of them for the market. These helpful hints will ease the process and undoubtedly get the end result you are looking for.

As anyone who is involved in real estate is aware, the kitchen is the most significant room in the home. The kitchen is often the “gathering place” for many families. Therefore, we will kick off the series with some tips and hints for preparing the kitchen for the market so that potential buyers can whip up meals in style.

Give Your Kitchen a Facelift

While the kitchen can certainly be the most expensive room to renovate, a complete renovation spending thousands of dollars to prepare it for the market is not necessary. Rather, taking a few simple steps toward updating your kitchen and giving it a fresh, new look will go a long way toward appealing to potential buyers. Clearly, one part of the preparation process will include repairing any items that have become damaged or are not functioning properly. Any appliances in non-working order should be repaired or replaced. Look out for damaged tile, linoleum or other items that may have cracked, chipped or fallen into disrepair. Renew kitchen walls and ceiling with a fresh coat of paint. Choose a light color to make a small kitchen look bigger. Or something as easy as removing worn curtains from the windows, leaving the windows uncovered for a brighter, more open look.

If your cabinets are worn or outdated, you should also reface them in order to bring your cabinets up-to-date. Refacing your kitchen cabinets is far less costly then gutting the kitchen and replacing them with new cabinetry. When you reface your cabinets, you simply repaint or restain the cabinet doors that you already have. Or, if the cabinet doors are not salvageable, you replace them with new doors and hardware. It’s an easy process, but if you are uncomfortable with refacing your kitchen cabinets on your own, it is certainly worth investing in a professional who can help you with the job.

Appeal to the Eco-Friendly Buyer

Another great way to modernize your kitchen and give it a facelift is by replacing your faucets — this can serve many purposes. First of all, faucets have a tendency to lose their shine fairly quickly after being installed. Therefore, by simply replacing your faucets, you can instantly make your kitchen look fresh and well-maintained. There are plenty of eco-friendly models available that will help with conserving water. Not only will this appeal to the eco-conscious buyer, but also to today’s buyers who are looking for cost saving home measures.

Depending upon where you live and what type of system you have in place in your home, it might also be worthwhile to invest in a filtration system if one is not already in place. After all, no buyer wants to purchase a home that does not offer clean water that can be enjoyed straight from the tap.

These easy tips will make your buyer one step closer to their dream kitchen.