By Jeanette Joy Fisher

Is your home listed with a professional-looking "For Sale" sign and a flyer box attached? Do potential home buyers pull up and get the flyer, or do they stop and look and then drive on? If no one bothers to get out of their car and pick up a flyer, you've got problems.

Curb Appeal

Take a good, hard look at the outside of your home, since that's what potential home buyers see first. If you've ever bought a home, you know that you passed by houses simply because they looked shabby and unloved from the curb viewpoint. It's just a quirk of human nature that makes a person think that if a home looks bad from the street, it will be just as bad on the inside--so don't let your home make a negative impression from the first glance.


 
This home lacks curb appeal. The car blocking the entry doesn't invite buyers to come inside. The front door can't be seen because of low-hanging tree branches. There is no pathway to the front door. And no flowers!

Curb Appeal Tips to Make Home Shoppers Pick up the Flyer

1) Keep the lawn and landscaping well-manicured.
2) Keep perennials looking good. Cut back straggly branches and dead blooms.
3) Plant gorgeous annual flowers to attract the eye to the front door.
4) Paint your door a happy color. You want buyers to feel like going through the door. Paint is cheap, and the rewards will be worth the effort.
5) Stage a setting near the front door. Rocking chairs, a porch swing, or a even a bench suggest friendly neighbor chats.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to make your curb appeal attract home buyers. However, you only get one glance to make a good first impression. So walk around your house and try to look at it as if it's the first time you've ever seen it. What things do you see that would make a less-than-favorable impression on YOU if you were looking at them for the first time? Those are the things you want to take care of--long before the first home shoppers drive by your home.

Copyright © 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher

Jeanette Fisher,  author of interior design and real estate books, teaches five ways to make more money selling your home or investment houses.  Free Home Staging Information and "How to Sell Your Home Fast."