Believe it or not, the global pandemic doesn’t have to throw off your real estate plans. People are still buying and selling homes despite business closures and social distancing guidelines. Home sellers have all kinds of options at their fingertips to help them prep their home for sale and show it off to potential buyers without risking the health of anyone involved. If you’re trying to sell your home right now, check out the following tips to ensure a fast and smooth sale!

Don’t Neglect the Importance of Staging

Staging your home is important whether you’re welcoming buyers inside for tours or solely posting pictures online. Home staging will highlight the very best features of your home while removing distractions that can prevent buyers from picturing what it would be like to live there. If you’ve already moved out of your home, you can even rent furniture and decorations to give it that welcoming, lived-in feeling.

You can do your staging yourself by decluttering, depersonalizing, and decorating key areas of your home, or you could hire a professional stager. Hiring a stager is a great option if you don’t have a lot of time or you’re just not sure how to work with your stuff to make your home look appealing to strangers. Fortunately, it’s easy to find professional interior designers on job boards like Upwork. Of course, make sure that the designer you hire will follow the COVID-19 precautions recommended by the CDC.

Develop a Cleaning Plan

Cleaning your home is an important part of preparing it for sale. But keeping household mess at bay can be tough when everyone in your family is home from work and school. One way to keep your home show-ready is to eliminate clutter. Packing up all of your children’s toys, knickknacks, and loose papers is a great way to prevent messes from piling up and will make it easier for you to clean up quickly before each showing.

During the coronavirus, it’s even more important to clean your home thoroughly—both before and after showings—to prevent the spread of illness. Focus your cleaning on high-touch areas like light switches, doorknobs, and countertops. If you can’t find cleaning products in the stores, try making some at home! Green Cleaning Reviews explains how you can make all kinds of COVID-19 cleaning products, including hand sanitizer and disinfectant spray.

Consider Offering Virtual Showings 

If you don’t feel good about letting strangers into your home during the pandemic, stick to safer showing alternatives. For example, many sellers are offering video chat tours and 3D walkthroughs to give buyers a virtual peek inside their homes. You can implement these same strategies to get your home in front of buyers. While you can shoot your own real estate videos yourself, it’s best to hire a professional who knows exactly how to make your home look beautiful and appealing on camera.

Create a Top-Notch Online Listing

If you opt for virtual showing options, be sure to double down on your online presence. Your real estate listing is your only chance to grab the attention of house-hunters, so it has to be perfect. Besides posting great photos, take the time to write a real estate listing description that will truly capture the hearts of your potential buyers. MyRealPage recommends incorporating descriptive details to emphasize the best part of your home, whether it’s luxury features like heated bathroom flooring or a view that will get you out of bed in the morning.

Like every other step in the home selling process, you can also seek help when it comes to creating your online listing. A great real estate agent will offer plenty of useful advice and guidance regarding the details and information to include in your listing to attract the highest number of buyers possible.

At first, selling your home during a pandemic might seem a little crazy. But house hunters are still out there looking for properties! With the right preparations and some help from a few virtual tools, you should have no problem getting your home in front of potential buyers.