Selling your home to prospective buyers is all about putting on a show. When you’re putting together that presentation, you’ll want to make sure that your home looks as great as possible. This might mean a coat of paint, some flashy lights, and a sheet of cookies. However, the most important step that you can take to make sure that your house is ready for the sale is to ensure that your carpets are as clean as can be.
Many prospective home buyers will agree that if a carpet looks dirty, they’re much less likely to settle on the home than when faced with other issues. Carpets can hold dirt and grime like few other features of a home, and the odour in a room is likely coming from the carpet. Estate agents will tell you that a home with dirty carpets is much more difficult to sell.
So, if you’re looking to sell your home but your carpets are dirty, what are your next steps? You won’t find success with dirty carpets, but replacing them can be expensive. While cleaning them might present you with a lot of work to do before you start selling, it’s one of the best ways to drive the price of your home up a surprising amount.
Why Clean Your Carpets Before Selling Your Home?
There are a couple of reasons why a homeowner or a real estate agent should make sure the carpets are as clean as they can be before you place a house on the market.
Firstly: presentation. Selling a house is all about making it look and feel like a home. If people don’t feel at home when they walk into a house, they’re much less likely to settle on it. The best way to make it feel like home is through staging. Decorate the house and make it look clean and livable for prospective buyers.
With dirty carpets, it doesn’t matter how nice your staging looks, the carpets will be the first thing a buyer sees. The second reason why you should clean your carpets before selling your home is for health and safety reasons. It might sound alarmist, but carpets are known for trapping dirt, dust, and odours. Too much of this can lead to excessive allergies or a lingering smell that you might not notice anymore. When someone new walks in, that odour will hit them hard.
The third reason for cleaning your carpets is specific for pet owners. If you have any pets, then chances are they are more than present in your carpets. Whether it be their fur, smell, or ‘gifts’ they give you when they can’t make it outside or to the litter box, these will need to be taken care of. Vacuums might work well for picking up fur, but those other pet reminders will need that deeper clean in order to fully remove them.
What Are the Best Carpet Cleaning Methods?
So, you’ve decided that cleaning your carpets is the best way to sell your home, but how do you go about doing it? Well, many people hire professionals to come in and clean the carpets for them. This is recommended across the board as it ensures that your carpets are clean and any dirty and grime is fully removed while the health of your carpets remains intact. However, it can be expensive, so some people might prefer to do it themselves. Here are the main methods you should try.
Steam Cleaners
This is the practice of using hot, pressurized water to forcibly remove any locked-in dirt and deep odours from the carpets. The water agitates the carpet and dissolves any dirt present. A cleaning agent is applied that will soak into the carpet and really get deep into it to remove even the toughest remnants. After it settles, you wash the carpet, let it dry, and you’re good to go. This process can take a while, and shouldn’t be used on areas of pet urine as it simply spreads it around.
Encapsulation
This is the use of a synthetic detergent as a base that is applied to dirty areas on the carpet. It crystallizes into a powder when it dries and encapsulates all dirt in the area within the powder. You then simply go over the powder with a vacuum and all of the dirt is removed leaving your carpets looking good as new. It’s a simple process that requires no extra tools you don’t already have.
Dry Carpet Cleaning
This is similar to encapsulation but is better at getting deep into the carpets themselves. Dry carpet cleaning is heavily recommended for places with heavy foot traffic and carpets that get dirty rather quickly. This is one of the safest methods for the carpet and is able to get rid of the dirt that has built up near the bottom of the carpet. Dry carpet cleaning is the application of a dry cleaning powder with a fast-moving brush to get it to the bottom where it soaks up all of the dirt.
Get professional help
If you don’t really want to dive into the nitty-gritty of carpet cleaning, hire some professional help. Most people will not have a good commercial carpet cleaner at home, and professionals will know how to get the best out of your carpet. Consider it an investment.
Start Selling Your Home With Clean Carpets
Don’t let your carpets hold you back from getting your home sold. With messy carpets, you’re facing an uphill battle to try to get your home sold, but once you thoroughly clean them, your home will have never been more appealing. Some experts might say that replacing your carpets is the way to go to get your home sold, but this only hurts your wallet. You might be able to sell your house for a slightly higher price, but the cost of replacement will diminish your net gain.
Clean your carpets today with any of the proven successful cleaning methods. Get into your carpet and scrub even the deepest dirt particles away with ease. Make note of what stains and odours plague your carpet, and select your cleaning method from there. If the stains continue to linger, maybe hiring a professional will do the trick. No matter how you go about it, cleaning your carpets for a home sale is one of the most important steps you can take.
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