How to really clean up when selling your home

If you want to sell your home in this market, HomeGain.com has two words of advice for you: clean up.

That’s the gist of HomeGain.’s annual survey of Realtors on what is billed as the top 12, do-it-yourself home improvements that can be done on the cheap.

It is a pretty sensible list, though I am not so sure about the survey’s claims of specific dollar gains from some of these common sense measures when sell your house.

Certainly trying to sell a dirty, cluttered home in this market is not a recipe for success when there are a lot of other homes, many of them cleaned and primped, sitting on the market.

Not surprisingly, cleaning and decluttering your home tops the list. At an average cost of $200, it supposedly yields an extra $1,700 on the final sale price.

Apparently it’s a perennial favorite on the HomeGain list, which has been tracking this stuff since 2000.

No. 2 and No. 3 on the HomeGain list of quick fixes also make sense and are plausible as low budget items. Home staging, at an estimated $300 cost, supposedly yields an extra $1,780 at closing day. Lightening and brightening, for a modest $230, will bring you another $1,300 on the sale of your house.

I am not so sure about landscaping and repairing the plumbing, No. 4 or 5 on the list. Both good ideas, but the impact of what an amateur can do here I think is limited. And if you have serious plumbing problems, $385 won’t get you far.

The same, to a lesser extent, is true of landscaping. Sure there are some easy things you can do, but if you have a full-time job and little kids and your yard is an overgrown mess, doing it yourself may turn out to be a nightmare. And if you hire someone, $320 will get you some mulch.

The same with updating your kitchen or upgrading the electrical – the last time I checked, your average homeowner is not a licensed electrician. Messing around with the wiring and starting a fire, well, that’s a definite no if you are looking to sell.

It’s hard to quibble with the other items farther down on the list, such as cleaning the carpet and painting the house, which require less skill.

Still, don’t be fooled, for while these ideas make sense, there likely more time and money involved than what is advertised.