Fall Season Curb Appeal

Curb appeal is the first thing a potential buyer sees when driving up to view your property, and that first impression can make a buyer excited to see the interior of your home, or it can make them anxious to get away!. Help your home make a great first impression! The fall season is actually one of the best times of the year to add curb appeal. Whereas in summer, leafy trees might have blocked the view of your home, autumn’s bare branches allow light and air to open up the view of your home’s exterior from the street. Look closely at your entrance. Is everything neat, tidy and clean? Is the lawn cut. Are the shrubs trimmed? Are you playing up your home’s entrance with potted plants in seasonal colours? Make it welcoming and inviting. These elements help a home stand out from the crowd.

You will probably find some chores that need to be done, and now that summer’s heat has given way to fall’s cooler weather, this is actually a much more comfortable time to tackle exterior maintenance and home improvements. Make sure you fix decking or railings wherever needed, repaint cracked or damaged areas of the home, fix tripping hazards on pathways and driveways, and repair leaky gutters. We get used to these small problems and after a while, our eyes slide right past them without even noticing. Potential buyers, however, will immediately notice any little thing you don’t take care of. They’ll get the impression that required maintenance hasn’t been done, and that will weigh heavily into their decision whether your home is the one for them.

Turn on the Lights! 

Outdoor lights can really showcase a home. The right lighting can make a home appear warm and inviting when potential buyers visit the property in the evening. Lighting a pathway to your front door is a great feature for both aesthetics and safety reasons.

A great tip is to have all your lights turned on inside the home. It’s much more likely the home will be shown when it’s dark outside due to fewer daylight hours in the fall. The home’s interior lighting will help make the home appear much larger than it actually is. Avoid making your home appear dark, small, and uninviting to potential buyers.

Show Off Your Storage!

Autumn means back to school and winter is just around the corner. Now’s the time when we bring out the boots, backpacks and coats and, I don’t know about you, but our kids tend to drop everything right at the front door. All that clutter in the entrance might make prospective buyers run for the exit. They might get the impression that the home hasn’t got enough storage. That perception might dissuade them from making an offer. At Prep’n Sell we recommend decluttering the entire home from outside to inside to give the impression of a well-organized space. Take outgrown or unneeded outerwear items to a donation centre so your closets appear a bit empty – there’s no better way to show that your home has room to properly store your family’s items, with a little room to spare!

Some tips we recommend are using storage to your advantage as you can make some simple improvements by just changing a few things around the home. As we enter the fall and the winter months try adding a place to store coats and shoes coming into the home. Use storage or organizers to maximize the space as potential buyers will be looking at the home’s storage to see if it fits their needs.

Dress up the Windows

If you are showing your home in daylight hours, pull up the blinds, open the shutters, and push back the drapes in every window. Turn on every light in the house, this includes closet lights. You can further brighten dark rooms or those without windows by placing spotlights on the floor behind furniture. This is an easy way to brighten and showcase those darker areas of your home.

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