A countdown, not a checklist
Every task sits on a date, working backwards from the day you want to go live. You will know this week what has to happen this week.
Free tool
A week-by-week plan to get the house ready.
Tell me when you want to list and what worries you about the place. You get a dated plan, a budget split, and an honest list of what not to bother doing.
Start here
Preparation is a sequence, not a to-do list.
Paint before flooring. Flooring before staging. Staging before photography. Trades booked before any of it, because availability decides your list date more often than money does.
The plan
Target list dateEverything below counts backwards from this date.
Prep budget
What are you worried about?Each one adds the specific task and the honest advice that goes with it.
The property
Property type
Roughly when was it built?
Condition today
Occupancy
Pick a target list date and your plan appears here.
What the plan gives you
Four things worth more than a generic checklist.
The skip list
The work that reliably fails to return its cost when you are selling inside a year. Usually the most valuable page, and the one nobody else hands you.
Where the budget actually goes
A split across paint, cleaning, decluttering, curb appeal, repairs and staging — in that order of return, not in order of what is fun to spend money on.
Condition flags before a buyer finds them
Poly-B, Kitec, aluminum wiring, roof age. Handled on your terms weeks early, these are footnotes. Found by an inspector, they are a price reduction.
The part a plan cannot do
Someone has to walk it.
A generated plan works from what you told it. It cannot see the stain on the basement wall, the slope of the grading at the back corner, or the fact that the kitchen cabinets are solid and only need paint.
That is what the walkthrough is for. Sixty to ninety minutes on site, looking at the home the way a builder does and the way a buyer’s inspector will, and you get the plan in writing afterwards — priorities, real cost ranges, the skip list, and a view on what the home should achieve as-is versus prepared.
Free, no obligation
Have me walk it and price the plan properly.
Real cost ranges for this market, what an inspector will flag, and what the home should achieve prepared versus as-is. You keep the plan whether or not you list with me.
- A room-by-room priority list ranked by effect on price
- The honest answer, including “do not bother”
- Vetted trades at fair prices, or take the list to your own
Prefer to talk? Call or text 416-953-9545
Straight answers
Questions people ask about this.
How far ahead should I really start?
Eight weeks is comfortable. It lets you book trades at normal rates instead of rush rates, sequence paint before flooring before photography, and absorb the one thing that always goes wrong. Under four weeks you are choosing between doing things properly and hitting the date — and listing two weeks late fully prepared almost always beats listing on time half-finished.
What if I do not want to spend anything?
Then spend time instead. Decluttering, deep cleaning, fixing small broken things and sorting out smells cost almost nothing and account for a surprising share of the result. Set the budget to the lowest band and the plan will weight itself accordingly. Plenty of homes sell well as-is with the price set correctly — that is a legitimate strategy, not a failure.
Should I renovate the kitchen before selling?
Almost never, if you are selling within the year. A full kitchen rarely returns its cost, it eats your entire runway, and it locks the home into one person's taste. Paint or reface the cabinets, change the hardware and taps, improve the lighting, and put the difference into price. If you have two years, the answer changes — that is the window where doing it properly makes sense, because you get to enjoy it too.
Can you walk the property and tell me what to do?
Yes, free and with no obligation to list with me. I spent more than 25 years in construction and renovation before selling real estate, so you get a contractor's read on condition and a REALTOR®'s read on pricing in the same visit — including a written plan and the honest answer when the right move is to do nothing.