My realtor gave us seven things to fix before we listed: touch up the paint, fix the one thing buyers would remember for the wrong reason, work through the small repairs, run a grout pen through the tile, get the ratty old furniture out, deep clean, and make the house smell like nothing. Paint first. It is the cheapest one and it does the most.
We sold our Florida house in June 2026 after nine years of renovating it ourselves. We had an offer in three days.
Before any of that, my brother Damien walked the house. He is a realtor in Oregon, and that day he was not walking it as my brother. He went room to room with the same eyes he uses on somebody else’s listing and handed me a list.
Some of it stung. I had spent nine years making that house ours and he was telling me to undo parts of it. He was right about all of it.
Half his list was about taking things out, and I wrote that half up separately in what to take out of your house before listing it, including the tool room he made me dismantle. This post is the other half. This is what he told us to fix.
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The 7 Things My Realtor Told Us to Fix Before We Listed
1. Touch up the paint, and start at the doorknobs
This was his first one and it is the one I would tell anybody to do first. Not repainting. Touching up. Every doorway where a hand has pushed the door open for years, every scuff along the hallway at hip height, every nicked baseboard and scratched kitchen cabinet. You stop seeing it after about a month of living somewhere. A buyer sees all of it in the first ten seconds because they have nothing else to look at yet. A sample pot of your existing wall color and a paint touch up pen got most of our house done in an afternoon.
2. Fix the one thing people will remember for the wrong reason
Every house has one. Ours was the original sliding patio door, which had been a fight to open since the day we moved in. You had to lift and shove it. Damien’s point was that it did not matter how nice the rest of the house was, because everybody who toured it was going to try that door, and that is the detail they would still be talking about in the car. We replaced it ourselves, along with a cracked window we had been ignoring. Go find yours. You already know what it is.
3. Work through the small repairs you stopped seeing
The cabinet door that hangs crooked, the loose towel bar, the outlet cover with a corner snapped off, the closet door off its track, the drip you have been meaning to deal with. None of these are a big deal on their own. Stacked up, they read as a house that has not been looked after, and that makes a buyer wonder what else has not been looked after. Walk each room with your phone, write down everything, and knock the list out in one weekend.
4. Run a grout pen through every line of tile
This is the cheapest thing on the list and it is almost unfair how well it works. Grout goes grey and blotchy so slowly that you never notice, and clean white grout lines make a bathroom read as new. A grout pen costs about as much as a sandwich and you can do a whole bathroom in an evening.
5. Get the tired furniture out
The sofa with the dip in the cushion, the dresser that has moved with you three times, the mattress on a frame you were going to replace. You do not have to buy anything. Taking the worst piece out of a room and leaving the room a little emptier beats leaving it in. A buyer cannot separate your furniture from your house. If your stuff looks tired, the house reads tired. We actually bought a cheap new couch just for staging the house that we later sold on FB Marketplace.
6. Clean it like you do not live there
Not your normal clean. Inside the oven, the tracks on the windows, the ceiling fan blades, the grime on the switch plates, the tops of the door frames. I used a steam cleaner to clean all of these things. Scuffs on painted walls come off with a magic eraser before you reach for paint. This one is mostly just your own time, and it is also the one people cut short, because it is the least fun job in the entire process.
7. Make it smell like nothing, then like something on purpose
Smell is the one thing a listing photo cannot carry and the first thing a person notices walking in. You cannot smell your own house, so ask somebody who does not live there to be honest with you. Get to neutral first, which usually means pets, trash, laundry and drains. Then add one thing, and keep it simple. Some people bake cookies right before showings, or run a load of laundry so the house smells like clean sheets (this stuff smells amazing), and use a little essential oil on your dryer balls. One scent, lightly. I went a step further and plugged in air purifiers and a home scent diffuser which smelled amazing but not overpowering. Think luxury hotel foyer. A house that smells too strongly of anything reads as a house covering something up.
The One Thing He Told Me Not to Do
I had a list of my own going into that walkthrough, and my favorite thing on it was a bold color I had been wanting to put somewhere for about a year. Selling the house felt like the last chance to do it.
He said no. Not because it would look bad, but because of where it lives.
Keep anything permanent neutral. Have the fun in the layer that leaves with you.
Paint, tile, counters, flooring and fixtures are the permanent layer. That layer should be quiet, because it is the part a buyer has to either love or pay to change. Art, rugs, pillows, bedding and plants are the removable layer, and that is where personality is free. It costs a buyer nothing because it walks out the door with you.
This is the tip that took me longest to accept, because doing the bold permanent thing is most of why I like renovating in the first place. It is also the one that saved me the most money and the most work, which is a pattern I noticed a lot during this whole process.
What Order to Do It In If You Have a Budget and a Deadline
Nobody gets to do all of it. When I asked Damien what actually moves a sale price, he gave me a ranking, and it is worth having in front of you before you spend a dollar.
| Priority | What it covers | Why it is this high |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Paint | Touch ups first, then any wall that is a statement | Cheapest change per square foot and it shows in every photo |
| 2. Lighting and fixtures | Dated ceiling lights, dim rooms, old cabinet hardware, tired faucets | Small spend, and it dates a house faster than almost anything else |
| 3. Kitchen and bath refreshes | Grout, caulk, hardware, paint on cabinets, not a gut job | These two rooms carry the most weight, so refresh beats remodel |
| 4. Curb appeal | Mulch, trimmed edges, a clean front door, a working porch light | It is the first photo and the walk from the car |
| 5. Functional storage | Standard shelving a buyer would expect, not custom to your stuff | Helps, but only when it fits what a normal buyer needs |
Notice what is not on that list. No new flooring, no countertop replacement, no bathroom gut, no addition. If you are three weeks from listing, you are not making the money back on any of those.
Ask Your Agent What Their Commission Actually Covers
This one is not a repair, but it belongs on the list because it saved us real money and almost nobody asks it.
I had a line in my head for professional listing photos, because I assumed that was on us. It was not. Our agent’s commission covered the photography, the mailers, and the publications she sent the listing out to. I never paid a cent for any of it, and I had been budgeting for it.
So ask, in plain words, before you sign anything: what is included in your commission, and what am I paying for separately? Marketing spend varies a lot between agents, and it is a fair question that a good one will answer without flinching. Ask it of every agent you interview and the answers alone will tell you a lot.
For what it is worth, do not try to shoot the listing photos yourself to save the money. I shoot video for a living and own the gear, and real estate photography is a genuinely different job. Wide angle without bending the walls, pulling a window without blowing it out, keeping vertical lines vertical, lighting a whole room instead of a subject. Let the person who does it every day do it. So worth it!
Fix It, or Take It Out?
Two different jobs, and it helps to keep them separate in your head. Fixing is about condition, which is what a buyer prices. Removing is about how easily somebody else can picture living there.
The quick test is whether the next owner would want it. If they would want it and it is broken or tired, fix it. If it only makes sense because of who you are and how you use the house, take it out and take it with you. That is the test that cost me my tool room, and I have written the whole removal list up in what to take out of your house before listing it.
If you are wondering whether your own projects will count for anything, Damien also scored all 25 DIY projects in that house for resale value, which is the most useful thing anybody has ever done for me.
Questions I Got Asked a Lot
What should I fix first before selling my house?
Paint touch ups. Doorways, hallways at hand height, and baseboards. It is the cheapest job on the list, it shows up in every listing photo, and you can do a whole house in an afternoon with a sample pot of the color already on your walls.
Is it worth fixing things before selling a house?
Small repairs, yes. Big renovations, usually not. A pile of little unfixed things tells a buyer the house has not been maintained, and that costs you more than the repairs would have. A new kitchen three weeks before listing does not make its money back.
What should you not fix before selling a house?
Anything permanent and bold. Our realtor told me to skip the statement color I was excited about, because paint, tile, counters and flooring are the layer a buyer has to live with or pay to change. Also skip full remodels, new flooring throughout, and anything you cannot finish before the photos.
How long before listing should I start the repairs?
Three to four weeks before your photos, not before your first showing. The photos are the listing, and most buyers decide on their phone whether your house is worth driving to. Everything on this list needs to be finished before the photographer walks in.
Should I repaint the whole house before selling?
Not usually. Touch up everywhere, and only fully repaint a room if the color is a statement and that room shows up in the first few listing photos. Whole house repaints eat your timeline and your budget for something buyers mostly register as clean rather than new.
Does a realtor’s commission cover listing photos?
Ours did, along with mailers and the publications the listing went out to, and I had budgeted to pay for photos myself. It varies by agent, so ask what is included in the commission and what you are paying for separately before you sign anything.
The Honest Version
Not one thing on that list was exciting. There is no before and after here that I would post. It was a weekend of touching up doorframes and running a grout pen around a bathroom wall while I would much rather have been building something.
Three days after the photos went up, we had an offer. I am not going to tell you the grout pen did that. But I will say the person who told us to do it sells houses for a living, and I have stopped arguing with him about houses.
Read Next
- What to take out of your house before listing it, including the tool room I built
- All 25 of our DIY projects, scored by a realtor for what they did to the sale price
- How we replaced the sliding patio door that was the worst thing in the house
- The sorting method that got a whole house packed without losing anything
Until next time,
Happy DIY-ing!
-Selene
