There’s more to selling a house than calling your realtor, setting up an online listing, and waiting for the generous offers to start rolling in.

If only it were that easy.

Selling a house can be stressful. It may take a while to sell, or you’ll find yourself struggling to get near your asking price. There are a bunch of variables involved. Luckily, you have a hand in (nearly) all of them. Before you put your house on the market, here’s a to-do list you should go through.

Find a Good Realtor

“For Sale by Owner” is almost never a good idea. It’s a tempting proposition, I admit. You skip the realtor fees, you don’t have to wade through the unscrupulous real estate agencies, and you have full control of the sales process.

It hardly works out this way.

My advice? Take your time to find a decent realtor. It’s worth the investment, trust me. They know what they’re doing, you probably don’t. And the commission isn’t what it used to be anyway, which explains why the FSBO method is less popular today.

Curb Appeal

Curb appeal, curb appeal, curb appeal. Have I mentioned curb appeal? It’s the very first thing a prospective buyer will see. It’s not what will get that offer over the line, but it’s the hook that you need to garner interest in your property. Here’s what you can do for very little money:

Invest in Your Lawn and Garden

You want your garden to be colorful. You want your lawn to be lush and green. It doesn’t have to reek showhome, but it does have to be neatly trimmed and welcoming. With just a few hundred dollars worth of fertilizer and weed control, you can actually add some decent value to your home.

I recommend you focus on lawn care, as it’s the thing most people get wrong. The main thing you want to avoid is a yellowing lawn. It’s relatively easy and inexpensive to stop it, and considering how much worse your lawn looks as a result of it, it’s a no brainer investment.

Ugly and Worn Garage Door? Replace It!

If your garage door wouldn’t look out of place in an inner city documentary from the 1980s, then you seriously need to think about replacing it. It just looks ugly and takes over the entire aesthetic of the home.

Garage doors will cost you around $1000, less if you do the job yourself. You can expect to triple your money if you DIY the project, so it’s really worth looking into a replacement.

Go Neutral

When you sell your home, you want it to be like Switzerland. In other words, neutral. You want to cater to a huge buying audience, not that one person who just so happens to have the exact same taste as you.

The easiest way to achieve neutrality is by repainting your walls. Opt for light colors, as they’re universally liked. Avoid orange, violet, and black like the plague. Don’t worry, you can still go bold on your color choices; just do it on accents or the front door, for example.

Get Rid of Stuff

Most homes are jam-packed with too much stuff. Drawers that are overflowing. Trinkets aplenty. Toys all over the place. Clothes on the ‘clothes chair’. You get the idea.

Stuff makes your house look messy. It makes it look smaller. The result? Buyers will go elsewhere. Get rid of the junk you don’t need, either by selling it or giving it away. If you really can’t part with your fifth-grade report card or that teddy bear you won at the state fair, put it in storage during the sale process (confession: that’s what I did!).

Bad Smells = Serious No, No

Before you put your house on the market, you want to conduct a smell test. Don’t do it yourself, however, as you’re already used to it. What you want to do is invite an unsuspecting third party to your property. If they note something foul, it’s time to do a serious deep clean.

And don’t think you can get away with masking the smell. Most ‘solutions’ will only be layered on top of whatever funky smell you’ve got going on, and candles and deodorizers are a clear giveaway that something is awry.

Make Sure It’s Clean

If you want to sell your house, pretend you’re getting the place ready for a first date. Or that time your in-laws visited your home for the very first time. You want it to be spotless. Again, don’t try and go showroom and you’re allowed to have a little personality showing through (just a tad!).

Selling your house can be an exhausting process, especially in a slow market. Ticking off the aforementioned items on this to-do list, however, will go a long way in helping you sell your property more quickly and increase its value to boot.