Home Selling Step 3: Prepare Your Home to Sell (Before You Hire a Realtor)

If you’re ready to prepare your home to sell, this step is about regaining control of the timeline and eliminating surprises before you ever put a “for sale” sign in the yard.

This step is not about perfection, and it is not about turning your house into a showroom. Instead, it is about doing the work on your schedule. That way, you are not forced into rushed decisions later.

Why Step 3 Comes Before Interviewing Agents

Once a REALTOR® is involved, preparation conversations happen quickly. In practice, they are often driven by listing dates, market momentum, and buyer activity. You can slow the process down after the fact, but it is easier to maintain control before you list.

Doing Step 3 first helps you:

• Identify deal-killers early (and decide what to do about them).
• Budget realistically for repairs and preparation.
• Reduce stress by working at your pace—and pausing if you burn out.
• Interview agents from a position of clarity instead of urgency.

This step exists to help you prepare your home to sell without urgency or regret.

This step also reinforces the foundational logic from earlier in the series:

• Home Selling Step 1: Deciding Whether to Sell Your Home (and Whether It Makes Sense)
  
• Home Selling Step 2: Net Proceeds From Selling Your Home
  
• Home Buying Step 1: Know Your Credit
  
• Home Buying Step 2: Build a Sustainable Budget
  

Prepare Your Home to Sell by Reducing Unknowns

Unknown problems destroy leverage late. Known problems, however, can be planned for early. That distinction is the entire point of this phase.

When buyers discover issues first, sellers rarely control how—or how cheaply—those issues are resolved.

Start with the “obvious” exterior items buyers notice

• Peeling paint
• Dry-rotted wood
• Broken windows or even small cracks
• Missing trim, loose railings, or visible safety hazards

In Abilene and West Texas, roof inspections are a must

Roof damage that drives replacement often cannot be seen from the ground. If you can see visible roof damage from the ground, the roof may already be well past the point of needing replacement.

Reputable roofers will often inspect and provide an estimate at no charge, and many will work with your insurance if wind/hail damage is involved. This is also a place to use due diligence: verify licensing, check reviews, and use the BBB as one input (not the only input) when choosing who you trust.

Cast Iron Sewer Lines Deserve the Same Attention

Even if a home does not have Orangeburg sewer pipe, many mid-century homes are still served by cast iron sewer laterals. While cast iron is far more durable than Orangeburg, it is not permanent.

Cast iron sewer pipe typically has an expected service life of roughly 50–75 years, depending on soil conditions, installation quality, and usage. Many homes built from the 1940s through the 1970s are now reaching that window.

As cast iron ages, it can:

• Corrode from the inside, reducing flow
• Develop scaling that traps waste and debris
• Crack or separate at joints
• Allow root intrusion through weakened sections

Like Orangeburg, these failures are usually not visible from the surface. A sewer scope is often the only way to understand the true condition.

The goal is not to assume failure. The goal is to know what you have before a buyer discovers it and forces the conversation on their terms.

Legacy Electrical Systems Deserve Early Attention

Electrical issues are another category where problems often exist quietly—until an inspection, insurance review, or lender raises concerns late in the process.

Many older homes still contain electrical systems that were acceptable when installed but are now considered outdated, risky, or difficult to insure.

Common legacy electrical issues include:

• Knob-and-tube wiring, often with individual wires run on porcelain posts and wrapped in cloth or cotton insulation.
• Aluminum branch wiring, commonly used in some homes built in the late 1960s and 1970s.
• Obsolete or unsafe electrical panels, such as certain Federal Pacific or Zinsco panels.

These systems may still function, but buyers, inspectors, insurers, and lenders may still reject them depending on lender, insurer, and mitigation options..

Knob-and-tube wiring and cloth-insulated wiring can become brittle over time. Aluminum wiring can loosen at connections and is associated with higher fire risk if not properly mitigated. Certain older panels have well-documented failure histories.

Like sewer and roof issues, these conditions are often not visible during a casual walkthrough. They surface during inspections—or worse, when an insurance company declines coverage.

The goal at this stage is not to assume the worst. The goal is to identify what you have, understand whether mitigation or replacement is required, and decide how to address it before it becomes a last-minute crisis.

Evaluate major systems honestly before listing

This is the early stage of “disclosure thinking,” even before we cover disclosure formally. You need to know what works, what doesn’t, and what is near the end of its service life.

Lying here doesn’t work. Misrepresentation often leads sellers into disputes and lawsuits later. The goal is not to panic—it is to understand reality and decide what to address.

This is not legal advice. If you have questions about disclosure obligations or risk, consult an attorney and your REALTOR®.

Inspection vs. Appraisal: Know What Each One Does Before Preparing Your Home to Sell

Paying for a home inspection at this stage can make sense, especially for older homes or homes with deferred maintenance.

• Inspection: identifies issues and risks buyers uncover during due diligence.
• Appraisal: supports value for the lender; it is not designed to find all defects.

In plain terms: appraisal is about value. Inspection is about problems. If your goal is to remove surprises and reduce renegotiation, inspection is often the better tool.

Also: pull out the old inspection report from when you bought the home (if it wasn’t a new build). Make sure any important items were addressed, or that you can explain why they were not.

Repair Funding When Cash Flow Is Tight (RealVitalize and Similar Programs)

Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate has a program called RealVitalize that can allow certain repairs or improvements to be paid from net proceeds at closing. Other franchises may offer similar programs.

Two important notes:

• These programs are not bottomless. The available amount is typically tied to the expected commission, not an unlimited repair budget.
• They can solve liquidity timing problems, but they do not change the underlying math of whether selling makes sense.

If cash flow is a concern, this can be one tool to help prepare your home to sell without draining reserves—but it should be used strategically.

Declutter Early: This Is a Decision Exercise, Not a Chore

If something’s sat in your garage, attic, or storage for years, ask the hard question: do you actually need it?

This is the right time for a garage sale, donation runs, or both. A garage sale can help financially, but it can also be exhausting—so choose the method that fits your energy and timeline.

Doing this now prevents rushed, emotional decisions later.

Sunk cost is not value

The value of an item is not what you paid for it. The value is what it will realistically bring today. A $5,000 dining set may be worth $750–$1,000 in the real world, and it does not take many months of paid storage for that value to erode to zero.

Whenever possible, storing items in a garage or outbuilding is usually better than renting a storage unit. Storage fees quietly destroy value.

Depersonalize Without Apologizing

Real estate punishes uniqueness. That’s not a moral statement—it’s a market reality. Buyers need to picture themselves in the home, and strong personalization often blocks that mental step.

• Pack and store non-essential items now (seasonal clothing, collections, extra books, etc.).
• Take down family photos and strongly personal displays.
• Be mindful of religious iconography and anything that creates a “this is not for me” reaction.

The goal is a blank canvas: generic, but nice. Think of it as the house before you moved your possessions in—only cleaner, more open, and easier to imagine living in.

I often explain this using an analogy from outside real estate.

I own a 1964 Impala SS that is very close to factory original. Everyone wants to talk to me about it. And yet, I would never put it in a car show—because it is not a standout, customized car.

What it is instead is a blank slate. It appeals to almost everyone whose family ever owned one—whether it was their grandparent’s daily driver or their cousin’s lowrider project.

That’s exactly what you want your house to be when you prepare your home to sell: generic, but nice. Familiar. Easy to project onto. Free of signals that say, “this was built for someone else.”

Remove what you plan to keep before listing

If you want to keep a fixture—like a special chandelier—remove it now and replace it with a decent, neutral fixture. The same logic applies to certain appliances or specialty items. Once the home is shown, buyers mentally include what they see.

Pets: Mitigate Early and Plan for Showings

Pets are a common buyer objection—especially odors and litter boxes. When my wife and I moved from our first house to our second, we bought the new home, worked on it, and moved before listing specifically because we had cats. We knew the cat boxes would be a negative.

That approach isn’t always possible, but the principle stands: if you have pets, you need a plan.

• Start odor mitigation early, not the week you list.
• Deep clean soft surfaces and address pet-wear areas honestly.
• Create a showing routine (containment, litter management, ventilation).

This is not about shame. It’s about removing friction for buyers who don’t share your tolerance or your allergies.

Use Open Houses as Market Research

If you’re unsure what “cookie-cutter but nice” really means, go to a few open houses in your rough price range. You should tour both new builds and existing homes. Looking at photos is not the same as walking through a home.

You’ll learn what stands out (good and bad), and you’ll get practical ideas about what you should and should not do before listing. Once you see what homes on the market look like, you’ll spot patterns quickly. Preparing your home to sell becomes much easier.

Why Preparing Your Home to Sell Early Puts the Timeline Back in Your Favor

The biggest advantage of Step 3 is simple: you control the pace.

• If you get burned out, you can pause.
• You can tackle preparation in stages.
• Decisions are made with a clear head instead of under deadline pressure.

Once a REALTOR® is in the picture, you can still slow the process. But it is easier to do it beforehand, while the market is not dictating your calendar.

What Comes Next

Once you prepare your home to sell and you understand the home’s condition, risks, and readiness level, you’re ready for the next step: choosing the right REALTOR® and structuring the listing strategy intentionally.

That’s where we go in Home Selling Step 4.

About Me — Doug Berry, MBA, REALTOR®

The Bow Tie Agent

I’m a REALTOR® with Better Homes & Gardens Senter, REALTORS® who focuses on helping buyers understand the real-world side of homeownership — from lending and budgeting to navigating underwriting without surprises. With an MBA and experience as a lender with USDA Rural Development’s mortgage programs, I approach the process the same way I do with clients: clearly, calmly, and without sales pressure.

If you have questions, need help figuring out where you are in the process, or want a second set of eyes before making a move, feel free to reach out:

📧 Doug@senterrealtors.com
📞 325-338-9734
🌐 www.dougberry.realtor