Congratulations, whether it be by fate, frustration, or just pure opportunity, you have made the choice to sell your own little piece of New York City. While moving can be a great thing, it can be a bit frustrating and stressful at the same time. To ensure you limit your frustration, you need to bring your apartment up to snuff first. There are a number of ways to make your apartment more appealing before you list it with a brokerage. Here are some tips for displaying your apartment’s full potential to help you hand off the keys to a new owner.
Staging. Make every square foot count.
Staging allows you to bring in a professional to best assess the right look and feel for your apartment to attract the most eligible buyers. An empty apartment can be hard to sell. Staging gives potential buyers an idea of how to use the space. While this is probably the priciest option to help you sell your apartment, it also greatly increases the chance of selling your apartment quickly while also helping you command the highest price available for your NYC apartment.
De-clutter and Organize.
We all have too much stuff. Many of us try to buy happiness one possession at a time. The key is to understand what has value and what makes your apartment more appealing. Your clutter will only make your apartment look dirty and cramped. Don’t let your stuff hide your apartment. First impressions sell apartments and maximize your return on investment.
Look at it this way, by cleaning up and de-cluttering you are going after two birds with one stone. This will help you to expedite your moving process ahead of time. Clean up, organize, and discard your unnecessary clutter. Shed your old baggage before you move, don’t take it with you.
Are you a dog or a cat person?
While I am a pet lover, a lot of people are not – especially when it comes time to buying a new apartment. Once of the quickest turnoffs can be finding out the previous owner had pets.
The automatic assumption is that the owner/animal wasn’t clean, and there are little surprises all over the apartment. No one expects these surprises to still be there of course, unless you are on an episode of hoarders. However, we all know that they happened at one time or another. They’re pets, it’s what they do.
Even avid animal lovers do not want to see their potential new apartment being used as a kennel or animal sanctuary. So what do you do with Fluffy and Fido in this case? Well, things like litter box in the bathroom or shower have to go. I love pets, but I have to agree that is fairly gross. I don’t think that I would be able to move forward with an apartment purchase if I saw that. Even if it was undervalued, or if the pets were later removed it would still be a hard sell for me.
Unless, I was buying the property with the intention of remodeling, I probably wouldn’t get over it. It may sound a little rough, but that’s the name of the game. You need to spend a little money and make sure the pet situation is not going to be a major turnoff. Try to hide the litter box, make sure all of the animal hair is off of the ground, maybe sign up for doggie daycare, and make sure it doesn’t smell like a zoo. You want people to walk in and not even know a pet is living there.
You love your kids, but unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that anyone else has to.
Your kids are your perfect little angels, but prospective buyers will lump them in the pet category. Pick up their toys, clean up their crayons, colors, everything. I’m not saying to hide the fact that you have kids, but just don’t make it overwhelming.
Again, you want your apartment to be the star of the show. You need to treat every showing as your only opportunity to make a sale. It doesn’t take long for buyers to make a quick judgment about an apartment. At the end of the day, you are selling an idea of what life could be like in your apartment. You want buyers to look at it as their future home, and not as your daycare.
Prime, Patch, and Paint.
Newsflash, prospective buyers don’t want to walk into their next apartment and see nothing but projects. In most cases, if the space is functional and can be cleaned up with a reasonable amount of effort, you are better off putting a minor facelift on areas like the bathroom and kitchen rather than a major overhaul.
A remodeled kitchen in some cases is not any better than an outdated kitchen. Unless your bathroom consists of a multiple bucket system I would leave it be (think manual flush). However, I would throw some neutral paint on the walls. While your daughter appreciated the hello kitty themed paint, prospective buyers probably won’t.
Make it happen.
Hopefully you don’t need to do that much in order to sell your apartment. The key is to take your time and do your best in the areas that matter most in your particular situation. Maybe pets are not an issue, but your living room wall is painted to match your collection of Pink Floyd. No judgment here, just an observation that all prospective buyers are probably not going to be Pink Floyd fans. You have to get them to fall in love with the space.
No apartment in NYC is perfect, but they all have a little charm. Some are more charming than others, but that is just something you have to work through. Have fun, and do a good job. You will sell that apartment.
I love NYC.
