While a lived-in home full of belongings and personalized spaces makes a homeowner feel comfortable and peaceful, it doesn’t make most potential buyers feel at ease. A home with neutral areas, clean surfaces, and a minimum of personal items allows buyers to see the basics of the house that might soon be theirs. There are some simple things that you can do to give your home a higher resale value and greater chance of being snapped up.

1. Fix anything that needs to be repaired. Potential buyers will be turned off a house with broken fixtures, leaky pipes, and stained ceilings. These may seem like small things that are easily repaired by the next owner, but they can take thousands of dollars off of the resale value or discourage people from buying at all. Make sure that your home doesn’t look like a “fixer-upper” when people begin thinking about buying it.

2. Clean your home top to bottom before putting it on the market. A clean home is more appealing to buyers. If your carpet doesn’t look clean after a good, deep cleaning, consider investing in replacing it completely. Eliminate as much clutter as possible, especially in areas of high use. If you have a lot of clutter with items regularly used, find an area where you can stash them quickly when a potential buyer comes to look around. Make the beds, put away any stray clothing, and turn on the lights. Just turning on a bright light in each room can make a house feel more airy.

3. Paint over any brightly-coloured walls and replace bright wallpapers. When putting your home up on the market, potential buyers want to imagine how the house will look with their own belongings inside. Walking into a house with walls painted in bold colours or brightly-patterned wallpaper often only makes a buyer think about how much time and money they will have to pour into the house after the initial purchase to transform it. Repaint or repaper walls with neutral colours. This gives buyers a clean palette to imagine their tastes in. Even walls that are already neutral can benefit from a fresh coat of paint to make them appear new and cared for.

4. Rearrange your furniture. Especially in a living room, less furniture can make a room seem much larger than it really is. Arrange each room so that space is at its best. If you have too many seats in the living room or dining room to make it look neat and spacious, tuck a couple of dining chairs away in a storage closet or move an armchair into your bedroom. Just don’t make the mistake of creating an obstacle course. Buyers respond more favourably to easy, clear paths from room to room.

5. Consider spending some money on home improvements. A nice deck or porch can add many times the price of its construction to a house’s value. Adding a breakfast nook to the dining room or kitchen will create a cozy space that buyers may just fall in love with. A home office also adds a great deal of value, particularly for buyers who work from home or just want a space of their own.