Preparing your house for sale can add a million and one things to your to-do list. It’s at this moment you come face-to-face with the little chores you hate and know that they must, at last, be beaten into submission. From cleaning gutters to inspecting the flashing around the chimney, some of us are guilty of being purposely blind to some chores.

We know the ‘friend’ of one blogger who literally breaks out in hives when ladders are involved. She actually hires help to change lightbulbs in her four-metre high ceiling fixtures and dust the blades of her ceiling fans. For this woman, and many others, it pays to have a handy list of people who don’t mind doing the unpleasant little chores some of us hate. If you don’t have a list, ask your favourite home stager whose property styling services include little fix ups to give you a bit of help.

Oh – you didn’t know property styling services included such things?

Professionals who put the finishing touches on for-sale properties are used to handling tiny, seemingly petty details. Finding somebody to wipe down switch plates or remove paint spatters on skirting boards throughout the house, for example, is easy enough. Every building contractor we know employs a cleaner whose job it is to remove plaster on hardwood floors and scrape paint from window glass. These folks are excellent at cleaning up construction or renovation debris. But who can be trusted to clean your oven?

Construction dirt is a totally different kind of mess than every-day-living dirt. Your stylist will also have a short-list of excellent cleaners who know all and are experts at making stove vents and sliding shower door tracks glisten. They can remove red-wine stains from the bedroom carpet, and Spiderman decals from the playroom walls. These cleaners come complete with an array of solvents, of toothbrushes to scrub itty-bitty places, and a supply of chamois cloths to polish those things that should shine and don’t. They’re wizards.

The trick, you see, is making the house appear to have just slipped from between the pages of an up-scale magazine ad. Most of us mortal human beings don’t live in or even understand spotlessly clean homes. Real life isn’t that way. It’s difficult for us to enact a zero tolerance policy for dirt. When perfection is necessary – and trust us when we tell you that only perfectly clean houses attract buyers willing to make big offers – bringing in a specialist is key.

Your home stylist will have a stable of tradesmen who can do everything from painting the exterior of your house to trimming your trees.

Presenting a home with trees and shrubbery that are properly trimmed and clipped with precision is one way to tell your prospective buyer that your house is properly maintained. Not only that, but the bad guys cannot possibly hide themselves among your greenery to sneak a peek at what’s within. Who knew that landscaping could lead to feelings of security among home buyers? Your home stylist knew.

There are handy-folk who can fix cracked verandah steps, rebuild a single span of soffit around your wrap-around verandah’s ceiling and make it look good as new. They can even insulate your garage in an afternoon. The trick is knowing where to find them. Fortunately, a really good sales team with an accomplished property stylist has more than a few tricks up its sleeves.

The reality is, the chores we hate – and the problems we simply don’t allow ourselves to see because we don’t know the proper fixes – can and should be taken care of before you list your house for sale. After your doors are flung open to the real-estate-buying-world, every problem your house has is immortalised in the memory of each person who views them. After that your house could be filed under, “un-wonderful”. Un-wonderful houses are the last ones to sell.

Knowing the various and sundry items that compose a prospective buyer’s ‘punch list’ is the business of your property stylist. That’s why you require a company that can provide nearly unlimited property styling services. The stylist can not only see and identify the problems before the buyer spots them, they can quickly resolve the issues whatever they are. Having a truly excellent property styling firm is a bit like having your Fairy Godmother’s phone number on speed dial. It’s practically magical.

Image courtesy of Grace & Glory Home.