Selling Your Home? Be Ready to Spring into Spring
LOUISIANA REALTORS • March 12, 2018
After a strange winter that was actually filled with snow, ice, and frigid temperatures; spring is being welcomed even more than usual, and not just for baseball games and crawfish boils. Warm temperatures and sunshine aside, this is the time of the year when prospective homebuyers come out of hibernation. If you are planning on selling your home, this is the time of the year to make sure it is ready to be shown, and ready to shine. Here are 5 tips for preparing your home for a spring sale.
Take Care of Small Repairs and Maintenance
While you have a home inspection done before any sale is finalized, it’s a good idea to take care of some of the more minor repairs you may have been putting off before your house goes on the market. If a prospective buyer notices something small, it can give them the impression that there are larger issues looming. Tightening knobs and handles, replacing light bulbs, and fixing a small leak can all pay major dividends.
Clean the Outside of Your Home
Curb appeal is a major factor when it comes to selling your home. This will be the first and most important impression for anyone considering purchasing your home. Cleaning out your gutters, pressure washing, and adding a fresh coat of paint are well helpful ways to ensure you put your best foot forward.
Address Your Landscaping
Likewise, the landscaping
around your home can be a great visual enhancement. Seed any bare spots in your lawn, keep it freshly mowed, trim bushes, weed, and plant some fresh, bright flowers.
Update and Refresh Your Front Door
Make your front door pop. Adding a fresh coat of paint, possibly a color that compliments and contrasts with the rest of your home, and replacing old and worn out door numbers can make for an inviting entrance.
De-clutter and De-personalize
Buyers want to be able to visualize their stuff in your home. You can make this easier by de-cluttering and de-personalizing as much as possible. Not only will this make the space appear bigger, but it will easily allow visitors to mentally envision this home as theirs. Removing any knickknacks, photos, refrigerator magnets, and other items like excess and bulky furniture can go a long way in selling your home.
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Lastly, once these and other items are taken care of, hire a REALTOR®. Your REALTOR® will make sure your best interests are protected, as well provide great insight, expertise, and resources for the sale of your home.
Week three of the Regular Session kept real estate issues in the conversation, even as lawmakers continued to focus heavily on workforce, tax and insurance policy. On the property tax front, measures to reshape assessments and exemptions, including proposals for a new blight rehabilitation exemption and additional relief for seniors, remain parked in the House Ways and Means Committee as stakeholders work through fiscal and local government concerns. These bills matter because they will influence long-term carrying costs, redevelopment incentives and how tax burdens are shared across residential and commercial property. Homestead related legislation, including parish level authority to increase the exemption amount, is also in the queue, signaling that the broader structure of Louisiana’s homestead system is officially on the table, not just the dollar figure. For homeowners and buyers, this debate goes directly to affordability. For local governments, it raises revenue stability and service delivery questions. There also has been movement on several identical pieces of legislation that would instruct parish assessors to develop a process for homeowners to permanently register for the homestead exemption for the duration that they own and live on the property. We are actively tracking legislation that will directly shape how investor activity and non-traditional transactions are recognized and regulated in Louisiana’s real estate market. This includes HB 468 by Troy Hebert , a key component of the Louisiana REALTORS® legislative package that targets the wholesale of residential real estate, which was heard in the House Commerce Committee on Monday. The bill is currently positioned for a floor vote early next week. As drafted, HB 468 represents a major step in the right direction for consumer protection in Louisiana, advancing needed guardrails through potential disclosure, registration, and practice standards that could redefine how assignment contracts and “off-market” transactions intersect with licensed brokerage activity. In parallel, HB 292 by Delisha Boyd passed the House on final reading, 86-3, and is on its way to the Senate. Together, these measures represent a coordinated policy effort to bring greater structure and transparency to emerging transaction models, while preserving the integrity of the traditional brokerage framework. Finally, the broader policy backdrop remains important: the Governor continues to push income tax changes and cost of living relief, while business and industry groups are prioritizing insurance, workforce and energy — each a key driver of long run housing demand and investment. As these debates evolve, we’ll keep you updated on what moves, what stalls and what it all means for your clients, your pipeline and private property rights across Louisiana. Please view the weekly bill tracking report provided by our lobbying team over at Harris, DeVille and Associates.
Tax Questions & Updates for 2026 Webinar Recording Now Available
NAR is pleased to share the latest consumer guide that explains the concept of home staging, offers DIY staging tips and missteps and shares the latest NAR member sentiment on how staging can help buyers better visualize the property as their future home and potentially net sellers a higher price. As a reminder, all guides in this series are available for download—in both English and Spanish—on facts.realtor . Please allow up to two weeks for the Spanish version of the latest resource to be translated and uploaded. For ease of reference, below is a list of the most recent guides: NEW: Staging Your House for a Sale Spotting Deepfake Scams in Real Estate Are You Ready to Invest in Real Estate? Thinking of Selling? 7 Factors to Consider How to Make Your Home More Energy Efficient Thank you for your continued engagement with the “Consumer Guide” series and for sharing the resources with prospective clients to ensure they have the information they need to find success in their home buying or selling journey. Remember that these guides are for informational purposes only and are not meant to enact or change any existing NAR policy. Be on the lookout for the next consumer guide, which discusses home mortgage options that allow buyers to fold in renovation costs.
