Improving Your Home's Value One Room at a Time: Your Garage

The garage is a wonderful space that is used as a catch-all room, we mean, place to store your car! Unfortunately, it's all too common for this space to receive the brunt of the years of collecting, and when your potential buyers walk into this space, you want to highlight how much space there is, and not have them wondering if a mouse will scurry out soon. As the best real estate agents at the Lake of the Ozarks, we want to make sure you're prepared for every aspect of selling your home. Here are a few tips to help you stage your garage and create a space that any buyer will be jealous about!


Purge and Gather

Start by purging and gathering all of the items in your garage that aren't necessary. In fact, because you'll be moving, you can pack up almost everything so that you can make the garage look as large as possible. If you've been saving boxes of clothes and toys for a garage sale, it's time to either have the sale or take everything to a thrift store. There's no reason to pack and move those items over to your new home, so take this opportunity to move them from the garage to your car, and then to someone who needs them. Gather up and separate your tools into categories and store them neatly in bins on shelves. If you want to leave them in the garage for staging purposes you can, but they must be organized. If there are cans of paint that you will leave for the home, keep them stacked nicely on a shelf, and make sure they are labeled for the appropriate room that they belong to. Do you have a snow blower in your garage during summer? You can move that over to your new home. Only keep season-appropriate items in the garage so you can continue using them to keep the place looking nice, and help remove some of the excess stuff in this space.


Sweep, Paint, and Replace

Now that you've removed the unnecessary items out of the garage, it's time to make a clean sweep! Once you have removed the dust bunnies, you can start addressing oil stains in the concrete. If there is any excess oil, you can wipe it up with a cloth. Then pour some paint thinner on the oil spot and make sure that it's thoroughly saturated. Now you can pour an absorbent material over the spot, like cat littler, sand, baking soda, cornmeal, or sawdust. After it has sat overnight you can sweep it up with a push broom with sturdy bristles. You can also pour a little laundry bleach, dry dishwasher detergent or concrete-cleaning solution on the oil-marked concrete and let it sit for an hour. If you still find that the stains are resisting your efforts of removal, you can paint, stain or seal the floor to give it a fresh look.

If there is any hardware in your garage that needs to be replaced, it's time to make those changes. If your garage door is broken, it's better to have it fixed in advance than wait until a buyer drops in and tries to use it. If anything squeaks in your garage (and we're not talking about small rodents!) spray some WD-40 on the hinges to keep them quiet as a mouse.


Stage What's Left

If you still have items left in your garage after purging, it's time to stage them and make everything look fresh and clean. If you have pets, move their food, litter boxes, and pens to the new home, or at least outside when a buyer is coming. While many people love having a furry friend in their home, however, they do not like to think that it has been living in the home they want to buy. Make sure that all athletic equipment is either packed away or stored neatly in bins. It's not bad to have things in your garage, in fact, you might like to have a few things left in there, but you don't want it to crowded or stuffed.

Buying and Selling Real Estate at the Lake of the Ozarks

If you've been toying around with the idea of selling your home, come to the company who can make it easy! At Gattermeir Davidson, we make selling a home at the Lake of the Ozarks fun and fast, so you can get where you need to go quickly. Of course, if you are upgrading and still want to stay at the Lake, we'd love to help you buy a home at the Lake of the Ozarks as well! Visit our website or give us a call at 877-870-5253 today!


2011 REALTOR Salesperson of the Year
Missouri Association of Realtors

Gattermeir Davidson Real Estate, LLC
752 Bagnell Dam Blvd., Suite A
Lake Ozark, MO 65049

Office | 573.365.1555
Fax | 573.365.1766





Location: Lake Ozark, MO, USA

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