Trying to sell your home? Cleaning your carpet may be the trick you need.
Whether you're changing jobs, growing a family, or emptying your nest, selling your home can be a lot of work. Fortunately, a good realtor can help you maximize your efforts and net the most cash at the end of the sale.
One of the most important aspects of selling your home is staging it well. You can't change your home's location, and while doubling the garage size or adding an extra bedroom would up the property value, it takes more time and money than most sellers want to invest. So a good staging can add that extra oomph your house needs to attract interest.
What is staging?
Staging your home includes everything from taking out the trash to deep cleaning: anything that will make a house more homey and inviting to a potential buyer. Since you want your potential buyers to envision their home in your house, efforts to "depersonalize" your home can help give it a boost in the potential buyer's mind. Removing family pictures, clothes, boots, toothbrushes, and heirlooms can help keep the buyer thinking about how their own personal touches would appear in the house. But don't worry if your house begins to feel empty: A house most attractive to potential buyers has about 60 percent of the amount of "stuff" that most people like to have to live in. That means it's helpful to clear out all your clutter and, if possible, some of your furniture and art.
Cleaning is a vitally important part of staging.
Have you ever been a guest in a dirty home? It's hard not to wonder what's growing behind the toilet or how long that spill on the counter has been there. Nothing makes people feel less at home than someone else's mess. If the house isn't clean, potential buyers will have a hard time feeling comfortable, and comfort is a must in every home.
So cleaning your home and carpet can help you sell your home, but how clean does your house need to be? The short answer is: very. Sweep, mop, brush, vacuum, wipe—give your house the works. Having the house deep-cleaned can give it a crisp, fresh new feel that can have potential buyers feeling right at home and ready to make their own fresh start.
Let's take a look at the carpet.
What does your carpet look like to a potential buyer? Perhaps more importantly, what does your carpet
smell like to a potential buyer? Cleaning your carpet can help you sell your home, so take a look around: are there dog hairs lining the walls or mysterious stains peeking out from below the furniture? You might not think much about a stain if you remember your toddler taking a tumble with a cup of juice. But don't forget that potential buyers don't know the story, and they're probably going to feel uncomfortable walking on it.
Do I need to deep-clean my carpet?
If your carpet is old, has stains, smells funny, or hasn't been deep cleaned in a few years, a good deep-cleaning can take care of these problems. Unfortunate odors and stains in carpet are usually caused by food, animal dander, or the mold that comes from trapped moisture.
Good professional cleaners with
high-quality equipment can remove these from your carpet, so it will look and smell its best.
As a bonus, deep cleaning will reduce the allergen count in your rooms. Dust mites, mold, and animal dander are some of the main allergy triggers for people who have household allergies, and they often hide in carpet. A deep-clean will clear these out and cart them away. Even if you don't have home allergies, a potential buyer might, and triggering an allergic reaction won't help them feel comfortable. And that’s just one more way cleaning your carpet can help you sell your home!
What about carpet protection? Is that worth it?
If your house is on the market, you'll have lots of potential buyers tramping in and out with their realtors, taking a look at the place and assessing it, until it goes under contract. You just cleaned your home and paid for a deep-cleaning. How do you feel about their muddy boots and hot coffee on your carpet?
Carpet protection can keep spills, stains, and dirt from doing their worst damage. How do they work? First, it prevents liquid from soaking into the carpet fibers, so a quick-response blotting can remove more of the spill. And second, they prevent spills from attaching themselves from the fibers, so the next vacuum or deep clean can more easily collect the grime and take it away.
If cleaning your carpet can help you sell your home, keeping it clean is just as important.
Home sweet home
With a beautifully staged and professionally cleaned home, you're sure to have solid offers before too long. If you have a good realtor to guide you through the process, you'll soon close on the house, have some more cash in the bank, and be ready to move on to life's next adventure.
Helping residents of West Bloomfield, Michigan, stage their homes for 40 years.