With the COVID-19 crisis, many industries have come to a halt. While the real estate market hasn’t shut down, it is one that’s seen a considerable slowdown.

If you’d been thinking about listing your home in the “hot” spring market, you’re likely re-thinking that decision right now. Social distancing protocols mean it’s hard to show your home to prospective buyers.

So what can you do?

1. Talk to a Realtor®

2. Deep Clean the House

3. Tackle Your Clutter

Now is a great time to get your home ready for a fast sale once the crisis is over. The market is sure to be booming then, and if your home is in great shape, it will sell quickly.

Let’s take a look at some of the steps you can take to be in the best position once it’s time to sell.

Talk to a Realtor®

Your first step is to start talking to a Realtor®. If you don’t already have someone in mind, do a few phone or video interviews with people who your friends recommend. Once you’ve chosen someone, you can take them on a video tour of your home and send some pictures of what the home currently looks like.

While it’s impossible to say what the market is going to look like in a few months, the Realtor® will be able to give you some great tips on things you can do to make your home more attractive, and thus more marketable.

Deep Clean the House

You’re stuck at home. You’ve got some time on your hands. It’s the perfect time to take care of some deep cleaning. Make or download a list of each of the rooms in your home and what you need to do in each room.

Go beyond the things that you normally do in your weekly cleaning. For instance, you’ll want to make sure that you dust the door frames, wash the windows, and wash the carpets.

Tackle Your Clutter

You already know homes look best when they’re clutter-free, so spend some of your quarantine time getting rid of the clutter. Go through your things and decide what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. You may not be able to make donations to the thrift stores right now, but you can pack things up to give away later.

Connect with families in need by posting items on local Facebook buy and sell groups, offering porch pick up for anyone who’s interested.

Once you’ve done that, use the money you’re saving on gas to purchase some attractive storage options, like basket containers or drawers. These are great solutions for toys and other small things usually left out simply because they don’t have a proper place. If you have kids, make sure they’re practising putting their things away in the right spot.

Spruce Up the Front of the House

Realtors® are always talking about curb appeal, and with pretty much everything shut down, you’ll have plenty of time this spring to get out in the yard and make things look prettier.

Take care of the lawn and choose flowers or other plants that will highlight your home’s features. Remember that perennial plants come back every year, so they’ll be a big hit with homebuyers who don’t want to spend a lot of time fixing up the yard each year. You’ll have done the work for them.

Make Some Upgrades to the Interior

You might not have the time or skill to take on major home improvements, like replacing the kitchen cabinets or knocking down walls to open the space up, but there are definitely little things you can do.

Always hated the wallpaper in the dining room? Take it down and paint the walls in a beautiful new colour. Refinish the hardwood floors. Stain the cabinets a darker colour. Get a new shower curtain and matching bath mat. Take whatever’s been bugging you the most and fix it up!

Sell When You’re Ready

So far, we’ve been focused on the things you can do to get your home ready to sell when this is “over”.

But when is that going to happen? What is it going to look like? Nobody can answer those questions right now.

It’s normal to feel some pressure to wait to sell your home, but what if you need to list it sooner rather than later? Realtors® are making it easy to sell your home during the COVID-19 crisis, and while the number of people house shopping right now may have decreased, there are still people out there looking. Your home could be the perfect fit for someone with a need to move right away.

Society is changing, and the home selling process may never look like what it once did. But if you see this time of social distancing as an opportunity, you could position your home to sell quickly for what it’s worth when you’re ready to sell it.

If you want to know what Sterling Homes is doing about COVID-19, you can read our action plan here.

Photo credits: depositphotos.com