Seller’s prep checklist

The expensive mistakes get made here, not at the negotiating table. Sequencing your sale against your next purchase is the single biggest lever.

• Pin down your next move first.Buying again, renting, or relocating changes the whole timeline. If you’re buying, get pre-approved now — it tells you what your sale actually needs to net.
• Request a mortgage payoff quote.Your remaining balance is not your payoff. Interest accrues to the closing date and there may be recording or wire fees.
• Estimate your net proceeds.Sale price minus payoff, commission, transfer tax, prorated property tax, and any concessions. Know this number before you price.
• Walk the house as a buyer would.Start at the curb and come in the front door. Write down what you notice in the first ten seconds — that’s the list that matters.
• Book contractors early.Roofers, electricians, and HVAC crews are booked out weeks in season. Anything structural needs to start now.
• Consider a pre-listing inspection.Optional, but it moves surprises from the negotiation into your control. Worth it on older housing stock.

Decluttering outperforms almost every renovation on a per-dollar basis. Buyers are trying to picture their life in the house, and your things are in the way of that.

• Cut the contents of every room by a third.Closets and the garage especially — a packed closet reads as "not enough storage" no matter how big it is.
• Depersonalize.Family photos, diplomas, religious and political items, kids’ artwork on the fridge. Neutral doesn’t mean cold, it means not obviously yours.
• Rent a storage unit if you need one.Cheaper than a price reduction. Move out the surplus rather than shuffling it between rooms on showing days.
• Clear the counters.Kitchen and bathroom counters should hold almost nothing. It is the fastest way to make a room look bigger.
• Deal with pet evidence.Odor is the one thing sellers genuinely cannot smell in their own home. Ask someone blunt.

Aim at cheap, visible, and fast. Big renovations rarely return their cost at sale; small deferred-maintenance items cost you far more than they should because buyers read them as a pattern.

• Work the small-repair list.Sticking doors, running toilets, dripping taps, loose handles, cracked switch plates, burnt-out bulbs. Each one is trivial; together they suggest neglect.
• Touch up paint, or repaint bold rooms neutral.Scuffed trim and patched drywall photograph badly.
• Deep clean, including windows.Clean windows change how bright a room photographs more than any staging.
• Service the furnace and A/C, and keep the receipts.Documented maintenance is a real negotiating asset during inspection.
• Handle curb appeal.Edge the lawn, mulch the beds, clean the gutters, wash or paint the front door, replace the mailbox if it’s tired.
• Check every smoke and CO detector.Some Michigan municipalities inspect for these before issuing a certificate of occupancy.

Michigan has specific disclosure and point-of-sale requirements, and some of them have real lead times. Start these before you need them.

• Complete the Michigan Seller’s Disclosure Statement.Required for most residential resales under the Seller Disclosure Act. Answer from actual knowledge and don’t leave blanks — this document follows you after closing.
• Lead-based paint disclosure if built before 1978.Federal requirement, separate from the state form, and it carries its own penalties.
• Check whether your county or township requires a point-of-sale inspection.Several Michigan counties require well and septic evaluation at transfer, and some municipalities require a pre-sale or occupancy inspection. These book out — ask early.
• Gather your documents.Survey, deed, title policy, HOA bylaws and dues, permits for past work, warranties, utility averages, and recent tax bills.
• Settle on price with real comparables.Recent, nearby, genuinely similar. Overpricing early costs more than starting at the right number, because the first two weeks draw the most traffic.

Photos are the listing. The overwhelming majority of buyers see them before they see the house, and a weak photo set costs showings you never hear about.

• Stage for the camera, then shoot.Every light on, every blind open, cars off the driveway, bins out of frame, toilet seats down.
• Review the listing copy and the room dimensions.Errors here surface later as appraisal and inspection friction.
• Agree on showing logistics.Notice window, lockbox, pets, and where you go during showings.
• Set a showing-day reset routine.A ten-minute circuit: lights, blinds, counters, bathrooms, trash, temperature.

An accepted offer is the middle of the process. Inspection and appraisal are where deals actually fall apart.

• Prepare for the inspection.Clear access to the furnace, water heater, electrical panel, attic, and crawlspace. An inspector who can’t reach something writes it up as unknown.
• Decide your repair posture before the report lands.Know in advance what you’ll fix, what you’ll credit, and what you won’t touch.
• Support the appraisal.Hand over your comparables, permits, and a list of improvements with dates and costs.
• Keep your own financing clean if you’re buying.No new credit, no large unexplained deposits, no job changes until both closings are done.
• Schedule movers and transfer utilities.Time the shutoff for the day after closing, not the day of.
• Confirm closing figures in advance.Review the settlement statement before you sit down, and arrange wire instructions by a verified phone call — wire fraud in real estate is common and unrecoverable.
• Leave the keys, remotes, codes, and manuals.Plus paint cans and any spare fixtures. Clean it out the way you’d want to receive it.

Rough planning figures for a Michigan sale, so your net expectation is set before you list rather than at the closing table.