INHABIT AUSTIN: real estate

1 Task Per Day: How to Maintain Showing Condition

15 10 2007

If you’ve ever sold a home before you know how important it is to maintain showing condition while on the market. It’s imperative that both the structural and aesthetic condition substantiate the asking price. Otherwise, the home will likely linger for days without generating any offers. Initially, it can take a lot of work to make it look like a model home, but the bigger challenge for most sellers is keeping the home in showing condition while it’s on the market.

Regardless if you have a family at home or not, maintaining showing condition doesn’t have to be as arduous as it is for many people. One way to defeat the challenge is to hire professional cleaners to take care of what you don’t have the time to do. But that can be expensive and you’re probably more of the do-it-yourself type. If the latter is true of you, below is an easy plan I’ve assembled to help you maintain showing condition. If you can’t do anything more, at least focus 15 minutes of your time each day to the designated task.

If you have a family at home, even better, that means you have easy access to cheap labor to assist you. Remember, the idea is to maintain showing condition, as the plan will work once the interior of the home starts to resemble a model. Also, depending on the level of traffic that is coming through your home, you may want to shuffle the daily tasks around to fit your situation. Lastly, a good rule to apply to the household is the old leave-no-trace axiom - pack it in, pack it out. If you take a dish to the living room, take it back to the dishwasher when you’re finished and put it back in the cabinet once it’s clean. Encourage the kiddos once they’re done playing with a toy to put it back where they got it… pretty simple really. Here’s the plan: