Simple Bathroom Renovation Tips for Selling
By Dana J. Smithers
www.sunonmybackredesigns.com


At all of my public talks on Preparing Your House for Selling home sellers want to know ‘Which are the most important rooms for selling?. My answer is always - the bathroom and the kitchen. Other rooms are important but since women make 85% of the buying decisions you need to pay attention to what we look at first! Many a restaurant has lost our business because of the condition of the bathroom – right ladies!

As a professional home stager I have worked with hundreds of clients getting their home ready for selling. Home Stagers are part of a growing service sector in the real estate industry. We know our business and we know how to give a home that ‘Open House Ready’ look.

One of the most important criteria that home stagers work with is determining who your target market is. We provide many services that allow us to assist the home seller to save them TIME, MONEY & ENERGY. Make no mistake – selling is a very, very big job.

My advice to you is not to spend too much money on major renovations in your bathroom or kitchen. These are very personal rooms and they are the ones that are most often updated once the new owner has moved in. Do what you need to do to make the rooms look good. There will be other places for you to spend your money.

I am going to share some simple tips that you can take to get your bathrooms looking great for selling no matter who your target market is. You can make these changes to your bathroom on a very small budget.

TIPS For Selling & Simple Bathroom Renovations:

1. Remove all the clutter and all of your personal items. Buyers don’t want to see your hair brush, tooth brush or your cat’s litter. (Honestly this is what I walked into one day…) Now is the time to sort through what you really need to keep, give away, sell or throw out. Recycle where you can. Counter tops should be clear with the exception of a few accessories.

2. Clean until every single thing sparkles in this bathroom. If you have a shower curtain buyers will pull it back to see the condition of the tub so clean all the grout until it is white.

3. One of the biggest changes and best investments is painting your walls. Choose a paint colour that will go with the colour scheme of your home which will be in a neutral colour. Light blues and/or greens are easy on the eye colours in bathrooms – think ‘spa’ and calm – a warm beige is always a safe colour.

4. If your lighting fixtures are old then replace them. You can buy very current brushed nickel light fixtures for very reasonable prices at Home Depot, Ikea, Canadian Tire or Rona. The old brass plates just don’t have the look home buyers want.

5. Flooring does not have to be an expensive item for your bathroom update. There are many excellent products on the market. Peel and stick t