Selling Your Home During the Holidays

The following suggestions came from Re/Max of Southeastern Michigan, but we think they apply in any market:

For those trying to selling their home during the holiday months, we recommend the following six easy tips to enhance your home's potential:

- Embrace the holiday season — Create a warm and inviting entrance with a simple, seasonal wreath on your front door. Also, adding a few holiday decorations inside can make a house feel more like a home to your visitors during this festive time of year.

- Think curb appeal — The blooming trees and flowers of summer may be gone, but your home still needs to have curb appeal to bring potential buyers inside. Keep your yard raked, or snow shoveled, to keep up a tidy appearance. Make sure exterior lights work and are on as needed to help show off your home from the street.

- Monitor the fireplace — Fireplaces are a sought after feature for many home buyers. Now that the cooler weather is back, you may be using your fireplace. Keep unwelcome odors away by cleaning up ashes after use.

- Lighten up — With days becoming shorter and darkness arriving earlier, remember to turn on lights and open curtains and blinds to open up your home, even for showings during the day.

- Add audio — Soft music is always a good backdrop when showing your home. It is acceptable to use holiday music, but do be careful to keep the volume soft and not too distracting. Light instrumental often is a good choice.

- Touch the senses — During this time of year, nothing says home like the smell of pumpkin or apple pie. You can either warm cider on the stove, burn a lightly fragrant candle or even bake a frozen pie prior to your showings to get this lovely aroma wafting through the air.