10 Things You Need To Do Before Listing Your House

– From an Inspector’s Perspective

I was chatting with a long-time friend and real estate agent, Lisa Webster–Johnston from Royal LePage Sterling Realty, Port Moody. We try to get a zoom meeting done every month or two.

We thought it would be a good idea to talk about some things you can do to get your house ready for the market, from an inspection based perspective. We really should do one from a real estate agent’s perspective as well. Next time!

Generally speaking, you want to leave the impression on the inspector and prospective buyers that the house was cared for. After all, the more things an inspector finds, the closer they’re going to look for other deficiencies.

10 Things You Need To Do Before Listing Your House:

1. Number one is easy. Clean the house. I mean like the spring cleaning type of cleaning. A deep clean. Every surface, including the insides of closets, cupboards, the garage, fireplaces and crawl spaces. Declutter as much as possible. Rent storage if you need to or better, Purge all together and either sell it, donate it or throw it away. Call a professional organizer if need be, like Randeep St Jaques at Clutterless Living. The work she does is amazing!
2. Open everything up. Make all the areas of the house accessible. Make sure there is good access to the crawl space, the attic hatch, the mechanical or utility room, cellars, the garage and any other locked doors. Ensure that the electrical panel and any sub-panels are accessible. Trim trees and shrubs away from the building and remove exterior storage from anywhere near the building. When an inspector can’t access certain areas, they have to write it up as a limitation in their report. It’s in your best interest to minimize the possibility of limitations in the report.
3. Batteries bulbs and remotes. Make sure all the light fixtures have working bulbs, all the remotes are in obvious locations and have fresh batteries. Remotes for things like gas fireplaces, fans and air conditioning units.
4. Change filters. If you have a forced-air furnace change the filters if they haven’t been done recently.
5. Provide specific instructions, if any. These can vary widely, but if there’s. anything you think the inspector should know, jot it down on a piece of paper and leave it in the kitchen on the counter.
6. Remove or kennel pets.
7. Make sure the utilities are turned on. This may not apply so much to your principal residence, but for recreational properties or properties you may own that are sitting fallow without a tenant, it is pretty important that the utilities are turned on for the inspector to do a thorough job.
8. Get the paperwork ready. I forgot to mention this one in the meeting… Get as much of the paperwork pertaining to the house together in one place, either on the dining room table or the kitchen counter. Things like, depreciation reports and Engineering reports – for apartments or townhouses, utility receipts, tax receipts, renovation notes and warranties (details, trades, invoices), plans, surveys and rental contracts.
   If you want to be proactive and make discoveries before the buyer does, visit your municipality and ask to see all the documentation regarding your property.
9. Do easy repairs. All those things you have on your to-do list that you’ve been putting off. Put them on.
10. And finally… undertake a pre-listing inspection. In my opinion, most inspections happen at the wrong time, during or near the subject removal time of a home purchase. It messes with the flow of the transaction. Isn’t it better to know what you’re selling before you put it to market?

In doing a pre-listing inspection, you are putting the renegotiations much more in your favour as you have already allotted for the cost of the deficiencies that were discovered. Statistically, these homes sell quicker, for returns far exceeding the cost of the inspection. The number of inspections, and thus, inspectors traipsing through your house can be greatly reduced and the Seller has the potential for more control over the transaction in general.

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