By Carrie Struss, May 28, 2019
How to Market Ready Your Home
There are 4 factors that control the sale of your home:
Location, Price, Marketing, and Condition
As a seller, you have the most control and effect over the condition of your home. Condition is one of the top factors in the marketability and sale of your home. Part of the work I do as a real estate agent is to help you prepare your home for the market by providing an extensive “Market Ready Your Home” guide. This guide helps transition your mindset from “This is my home” to “This is a product for sale.” It takes you through each area of your home and provides a checklist on what to do to get your home ready to be marketed, listed, and sold.
One part of this guide covers your home’s functional condition and things that will be addressed during disclosures and inspections. Are there things that need to be fixed? This is not the pretty fun part.
On the flip side, the majority of the guide part talks about your home’s aesthetic condition. This is the fun part where we basically get to play dress up with your house! What can we do to make the home most appealing to today’s buyers?
Once we factor in costs, time, and ability (who is going to do what), we prioritize both functional fixes and aesthetic updates to create a Market Ready checklist and timeline specific to your home!
Below is the Market Ready checklist from my latest Alameda listing:
-paint interior and exterior
-clean roof and gutters
-landscape and clear out flower beds
-trim hedges below windows to allow light in
-remove storm windows and get windows professionally washed
-install new mirrors and bathroom lights
-install new porch light
-update canned lights in kitchen
-update basement lights
Having wonderful clients that executed their entire checklist helped! Here are the before and afters:
As you can see, it is very important to hire a real estate agent who can help you throughout the entire listing process by providing guidance and resources needed from start to finish and beyond. If you would like a free copy of my “Market Ready Your Home” guide, please email me at carrie@livingroomre.com!
Carrie Struss
Broker | OR & WA
She/Her
Carrie brings eight years of experience as a Licensed Broker in Oregon and Washington, combining her industry expertise with an eye for detail honed through her degree in Commercial Photography.
Her career began with one of her proudest accomplishments: relocating to New York straight out of college to work as a photo producer, where she never settled for an entry-level mindset. It is this same tenacity that has helped make her the top producing agent at Living Room Realty in the Vancouver, WA area since 2021. This accomplishment is a testament to her unwavering commitment to client success.
Throughout her career, Carrie has had the privilege of assisting over 100 homeowners achieve their real estate goals. What sets Carrie apart as an agent is her empathetic approach, ensuring that every client feels heard and understood throughout the buying or selling process.
Carrie has lived in the Pacific Northwest since 2017, though she’s been visiting the area since her teenage years. Beyond her professional life, Carrie finds peace and joy in nature, spending summers by the river and winters in Hawaii. Amidst her successful career, Carrie's greatest joy is her son Jack, who brings boundless love and inspiration to her life.
As your agent Carrie will…
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- help get your home (and emotions) ready to sell, then sell your home.
- find you a new home complete with (fill in the “must have” blank).
- facilitate the transaction making sure everyone does what they need to do and has what they need to do it.
- negotiate tenaciously for you.
- educate you on the daunting, overwhelming, and at times stressful process.
- remain calm, always.
- keep you focused on your goals.
- pay attention to every detail.
- show up.
- effectively communicate in the way that works best for you.
- uphold Living Room Realty’s values and what they mean to her.
- T: 503-953-0850
- carrie@carriestruss.com
