Will your home pass the test? Could you sell for top dollar right now, or do you think you got to do a couple things before you put it on the market? Hi, I'm Brendan Moran with Five Star Real Estate. We've sold hundreds of homes over the years, so we know what we're talking about and we're going to talk to you today about whether your home passes the test.

Wait, is there a test to pass in selling a home?

When somebody walks up to your home, what is their first impression? What is the curb appeal? Do you need paint and touch-ups? Do you need fresh landscaping? Maybe some bark. Do you need to paint your front door? Are there cobwebs hanging over? See, this is the stuff that somebody that you need to hire who might care more about getting you top dollar than hurting your feelings can tell you.

The 3 Ds; depersonalize, de-clutter, and deep clean

Depersonalized

Depersonalized, meaning get the pictures of your cat off of the mantle. Nobody wants to see your family. I'm sure they're beautiful, but the problem is when they start walking through, they're going to be looking at you and thinking about you and how long you've been in the house, and they're not going to look at the house and imagine themselves in the house.

De-clutter

De-clutter everything off of the countertops. I'm talking about the spatulas and all the little knicknacky stuff as less stuff as possible, the better. It's a cliche, but less is more.

Deep Clean

You need to think about getting into the nooks and crannies, the grout, and the years of grease from your kids running up and down the walls. It's just better to have somebody come in and do a full-scale deep cleaning so you can get more money in the end. What about your flooring and your countertops? Yeah, I understand. It doesn't make a ton of sense sometimes to buy $20,000 worth of new floors that you're never going to walk on, but if your floors and your countertops have been abused for the last 20 years, a buyer's going to see that and they're not going to want to give you as much that you probably feel like you want for the house. So sometimes putting money in, even if you're never going to use it, makes sense. Let's talk about smell. Do you have pets? A lot of people do. Did you know that you probably can't smell your pets, but other people can? Word of no deep, clean everything. Get some Febreze. And when it's time to sell, if you can limit your pet's traffic, do it. Send 'em to the neighbors, send 'em to another family member. It's just better for you and for your buyers.

Is your home staged or is it partially staged? Or are you just going with the furniture you have because you think everybody loves it? I have some news for you. Not everybody loves your furniture. You're better off getting rid of some pieces. Throw it in the garage, and have an estate sale. Bring some new stuff in. You don't have to clear everything out and start with fake furniture, especially if you're still living there.

I get it. There are some things you can do and some things you can't, but we need to be realistic about marketing your home to the buyers, not to you from 20 years ago when you fell in love with the house. Does it make sense? So I challenge you.

Rate your house from 1 to 10, see your house through somebody else's eyes and what they would see when they walk through the first time.

Did they want to pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars or more to live there? Or are they going to think, yeah, I got to do this, I got to do that. And this is not that clean because it's going to be turnoffs. Be realistic. Be honest with yourself.

Get help

Hire somebody who knows what they're doing to get you started on the right path and you can get more money for your home. I'm Brendan Moran from Five Star Real Estate and I am here for you.