The home selling process is hard enough, but if you have pets it may become even more difficult. Don’t get too surprised when your agent says having a pet can significantly reduce your home’s value. As a pet owner myself, I know how important they are to us, still they provide some extra challenges when selling a home. While our pets are extremely important to each homeowner, they should consider taking extra work and putting effort to sell a home. Keep in mind: our domesticated four-legged friends stink, and potential buyers don’t want to purchase stinky houses. The good news is, that owning a pet doesn’t mean you can’t make your house marketable. To be a step ahead and not to sell your home for less money only for owning a pet, we’ve put some very valuable tips all together and advice how one should perform when selling a home as you have pets.

Deep Clean Your Home

No matter you have pets or not, before putting on the market, you should take care of cleaning your home. However, it’s becoming more important when you have a pet. This is not only cleaning available parts of your rooms but giving a really deep clean. It should cover all corners, behind all furniture, carpets, and rugs and even inside each closet. This may be a hard task for some homeowners to do all the work themselves. Sometimes you may have to hire a professional cleaner. Not only they might do the cleaning better and faster, but they will also tell you for sure if there is any smell or odors to avoid losing a potential sale. You may not notice it yourself, because you are used to pet smells. Ever after showing your home to a potential buyer, don’t be shy to ask your real estate agent or a friend whether there is any smell or not.

Stains, Odors, or Fur

We talked about cleaning your home and yard above, but it’s a must to come back to these points again. Pets have accidents and, let’s say, you may not notice them until they’ve become set-in. Stains may affect your carpets and flooring, your furniture and it’s too important to fix all these out, before listing your home. Any buyer will immediately notice and smell the stains. If you have stains on the walls or trim, you should replace them as well. Odors are another great problem when selling a home with pets. Not only they are noticeable when someone enters your home, but they are also difficult to get rid of. So no potential buyer is willing to do it themselves. Try to find each and every place your pet might have an accident. It’s important to vacuum daily to eliminate new odors if you are keeping your pet at home while your home is on the market. Hardwood floor, furniture, carpets, subfloor need replacing. Or just use odor-free paint to do the trick. Remember that our furry friends are going to shed, and this is a problem for buyers who have allergies. When cleaning and trying to remove all pet signs, don’t underestimate fur. It may hide between furniture and tight corners.

Repairing interior and exterior

Sure thing, we all love our pets, but still, they are animals and their damage is far from being something attractive to a buyer.  Dogs and cats may damage your furniture, carpets, hardwood flooring, walls, doors, fence in the yard and much more. In fact, if your pet is not a present, they will damage everything. So, before listing your home, make sure to carefully repair any damage. This will incredibly add value to your home. Of course, this may be out of your budget, if your lovely pet had destroyed expensive hardwood flooring or expensive furniture. These investments will pay off when selling your home with repaired interior and exterior. Your yard and home’s exterior is what a potential buyer sees first. So, take care of landscaping, porch, and deck. Inspect all those parts and find out all chewing and scratch marks. Try to repair and remove every sign of a pet.

Relocate Your Furry Friend

Some really good seller agents advise to temporarily relocate your pet. As the selling process may take you from a few days to a few months, you’ll have to ask a friend or professional service to take care of your four-leg friend. This may be something you don’t want, but be honest to yourself- is it better and easier to have your home clean and prepared for showing with pets or without them? Furthermore, why do you need to clean your home, if your animal will turn it into what your home was like before cleaning, in only a few minutes? Besides, you should keep in mind that selling a home may be as stressful you your pet as it is for you, especially if your pet is old enough. Talk to your veterinarian and ask for good advice on how you should act.

While Showing You House

If anyway you’re keeping your pets at home, try to keep them out when showing your home. If there is no one who can take care of your furry friend, let your agent show your home, while you are taking your dog or cat for a walk. No matter how friendly and lovely your pets are, they may have bad days and be caught in uncomfortable situations. Especially, if buyers have arrived with kids, imagine how your pet could react. Make sure to be prepared any time and any day requested. It’s really very important not to have any time limit for showing. Keep in mind, buyers will not wait for you. You’ll simply have to lose the sale. At least, put your pet into a carrier and attach note warning buyers not to disturb them.

By: Hermine Aslanyan

Additional Resources:

How To Sell The House Nobody Likes by Debbie Drummond

3 Tips for Evaluating Multiple Offers In Real Estate by Wendy Weir

5 Common Objections to a Realistic Listing Price by Tina Israelson

…Did I Miss Something? What Would You Add?

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