How do I prepare my home for sale in the Minneapolis market?

The first thing I do is walk through the house with you — not as someone who lives there, but as the first buyer who's about to walk in cold. There's a gap between what you've stopped seeing and what a buyer notices immediately. My job is to close that gap before we go live.

What moves buyers in Minneapolis: light, cleanliness, and the sense that a home has been cared for. You don't need a full renovation. You need the things that read as neglect to be addressed — the scuffed baseboards, the dated light fixtures, the bathroom grout that's seen better days. These are small costs with outsized impact on first impressions.

I also do the homework on pricing before we talk staging, because sometimes the right move is a different conversation. If the comparable sales in your area say a $15,000 kitchen update returns $8,000 in price, I'm going to tell you that.

For most homes, the preparation checklist is shorter than people expect: deep clean, declutter, address the obvious deferred maintenance, get the lawn presentable, and stage the main living areas so they photograph well. Professional photography is non-negotiable — that's where buyers form their first impression now, before they ever set foot inside.

I've done this enough times to know what matters and what doesn't. I'll tell you where to spend and where to save.