12
Primary bedroom
Buyers rank this second only to the living room. Think hotel — not “where we happen to sleep.”
Team Sordelet · Sell
The Team Sordelet Home Preparation Guide
Media DayReady
One of the most important days in the sale of your home happens before your home ever hits the market. Not listing day. Media Day — the day we capture your home to impress the world.
- Thinking about selling in the next few months?
- Wondering what is actually worth fixing first — and what to leave alone?
- Want the photographs to show your home at its best?
Work through the checklist below at your own pace, or take the printable version with you.
Questions? Call or text David — 302-613-4228
Long before most buyers walk through your front door, they will meet your home on a screen. They will scroll past dozens of properties and decide in seconds which ones deserve a closer look.
Those images cannot smell your fresh paint. They cannot hear how quiet the street is at night, or feel how the afternoon light lands in the kitchen. The pictures have to tell the story on their own — and everything they will ever say about your home is decided on one day.
That is why we do not simply want your home ready to list. We want it Media Day Ready.
This guide is the one we give every Delaware seller we list. Our job is not to make your home into something it isn't. Our job is to remove the distractions so buyers notice what is actually there: the counter space, the natural light, the room sizes, the fireplace, the backyard, the view, the details you have spent years improving and enjoying.
Why Media Day matters
73%of buyers' agents call listing photos highly important to their clients
48%say the same about video
43%say the same about virtual tours
83%say staging makes it easier for a buyer to picture the home as their own
Source: National Association of REALTORS®, 2025 Profile of Home Staging. In the same study, 31% of buyers' agents said buyers were more willing to walk through a home they had seen online when it was staged.
Want this on paper?
Download the two-page printable version, stick it on the refrigerator, and check things off as you go.
Before you do anything, askDoes this help the buyer notice the house — or does it make them notice our stuff?
If a buyer's eye lands on your furniture, your collections, your toiletries, your family photographs, the cords, the lawn equipment, the pet bowls or the storage boxes before it lands on the hardwood floors, the windows, the kitchen and the size of the rooms, we have work to do.
Everything below comes from that one question. Work through it from the street to the basement. You will not need every line — use what applies.
01
Start at the street
Before you touch anything inside, walk across the street and look back at your own house the way a stranger would. The first exterior image is usually the cover of your listing — the thumbnail a buyer taps or scrolls past.
On the day
Cars are the single most common thing that ruins an exterior photo. Plan where every vehicle goes — yours and your neighbors' if you can ask nicely.
02
Landscaping
The goal is maintained, clean and inviting. It is not a renovation.
A word of caution
Do not over-landscape to sell. A tidy, well-kept yard photographs beautifully. A $15,000 landscape project rarely returns $15,000.
03
Roof, gutters and exterior maintenance
These are not staging items. They are the things that make a buyer wonder what else has been neglected.
The principle
Fix the little things that make buyers wonder about the big things. One loose doorknob is nothing. Five loose doorknobs, a dripping faucet, a cracked switch plate and a door that sticks add up to a story about how the house has been cared for.
04
The front-door test
This gets its own section because buyers spend 30 to 60 seconds standing at your front door while the agent works the lockbox. They have nothing to do but look around.
A professional stager told Redfin that the front door is one of the most overlooked details buyers notice — a worn doorbell, scratched hardware, chipped paint, cobwebs and a dirty threshold all become far more noticeable than sellers realize.
05
The whole-house edit
Before you clean anything, take things away. This is the highest-return thing a seller can do, and it costs almost nothing.
NAR's consumer guidance recommends packing personal items early, removing bulky furniture, and keeping closets only about half full — effectively starting your move before you list.
Not sterile
The goal is not an empty house. It should still feel like a home — just a home where a buyer can imagine their furniture, their photographs and their family.
06
Ceilings, walls and floors
Now go room by room and look up, across and down.
NAR's consumer guidance specifically suggests neutral tones — beige, gray, soft white — when repainting to sell.
Photo trick
Too many area rugs visually chop one room into several small pieces. Pulling a rug can make a room read noticeably larger in a photograph.
07
Windows
Natural light is the single biggest variable in interior photography, and every one of these is cheap.
Ask us first
Zillow's photography guidance suggests removing window screens before a shoot, especially where there is a view — screens cut light and sharpness. We will tell you which windows are worth it.
08
Lighting
Walk the whole house, turn on every light, and ask one question in each room: does this feel bright?
The one that shows
One yellow bulb, one white bulb and one blue-white bulb in the same fixture looks fine to your eye and terrible in a photograph. Match them.
09
Kitchen
Sellers' agents stage the kitchen more often than almost any other room, and buyers rank it third in importance behind the living room and primary bedroom.
The rule here is simple: show counter space, not countertop appliances.
10
Living room
In NAR's 2025 research this is the room buyers' agents named most important to stage — 37% put it first, and 91% of sellers' agents stage it.
Ask one question
What is the feature of this room? The fireplace, the windows, the vaulted ceiling, the view, the built-ins. Then arrange the room so a buyer's eye goes straight there.
11
Dining room
The dining room has one job in a photograph: communicate space and function.
13
Secondary bedrooms
Every room needs one obvious purpose. A bedroom should read clearly as a bedroom; an office should read clearly as an office.
Never leave a buyer standing in a doorway asking what a room is for.
14
Bathrooms
On Media Day a bathroom should look almost unused.
Zillow's pre-listing guidance puts kitchens and bathrooms at the center of the deep clean, and calls out leaking faucets, running toilets, caulk and grout as the repairs to make before photos and showings.
15
Closets
Buyers open closets. Do not solve the room by moving its clutter in here.
The message
A half-full closet says there is plenty of storage here. A packed one says we outgrew this house.
16
Laundry room
One of the most overlooked rooms in the house — and if yours is small, clearing it matters even more.
17
Basement
A basement does not need to be staged. It needs to say four things: clean, dry, organized, maintained.
Be straight about water
Do not cosmetically disguise water intrusion. Solve it, and disclose it appropriately. Buyers and inspectors find it anyway, and finding it late costs you far more than disclosing it early.
18
Garage
It does not have to be empty. It should not look like a storage unit exploded.
19
Deck, patio, porch and outdoor living
This is where we sell lifestyle rather than square footage. A good outdoor photo should make someone think: I could see us having friends over here.
20
Pets
We love our pets. The internet does not need to know they live here.
21
Smell
A camera cannot capture odor. A buyer standing in your entry absolutely can — and it is the fastest way to lose one.
Do not mask it. Find it.
Rule of thumb
Clean and neutral beats Pumpkin Cinnamon Vanilla Explosion every single time. Heavy fragrance reads as something being covered up.
22
Should we repair it before we list?
This is the question where our advice earns its keep, and the honest answer is that it depends on the market, the likely buyer and the return. Sellers can easily spend $30,000 solving a $10,000 problem.
We sort everything into three buckets.
Do it
Low cost, high visibility. A broken switch plate, a dripping faucet, failed caulk, a loose knob, a burned-out bulb, holes in the wall, peeling paint. These cost very little and they quietly reassure a buyer that the house has been looked after.
Let's talk about it
Carpet replacement, significant painting, appliances, countertops, refinishing floors, larger landscaping projects. Sometimes worth it, sometimes better handled with a credit or a price adjustment. We will look at the comparable homes together.
Don't spend it yet
Roof, HVAC, windows, kitchen and bathroom remodels, other major capital improvements. Hold until we have evaluated the market, the likely buyer reaction and what the work would actually return.
NAR's seller guidance also suggests getting written estimates for the big-ticket items even when you do not plan to fix them — a real number in hand is far more useful to a buyer, and to you at the negotiating table, than an unknown.
23
The cellphone test
Three days before Media Day, take your phone and photograph every room from the doorway. Do not tidy anything first. That is the whole point.
Then sit down with a cup of coffee and look at the pictures instead of the rooms. Almost everyone has the same reaction:
What people notice
“Why are there six things on that counter?” · “That cord looks terrible.” · “That chair makes the room look tiny.” · “Why is the trash can in the middle of the picture?” · “I have never once noticed all those magnets on the refrigerator.”
This is not our idea. NAR's own consumer guide on staging recommends photographing your rooms to see what stands out — a camera edits out everything your eye has learned to ignore.
24
The 48-hour countdown
Everything above is preparation. This is the finish. These three passes are what turn a well-prepared house into a photographed one.
48 hours out
The heavy work should be behind you. Nothing on this list should still be in progress the night before.
The night before
Do these after dinner so the morning is calm.
Morning of
Thirty minutes, room by room. Then walk it once more as if you had never seen it.
How we run it
We arrive before the crew, not with them. Your agent walks the house first and fixes the last five things while there is still time to fix them. Ceiling fans off, blinds matched, one more look from every doorway. Then we shoot.
Questions sellers actually ask
The short answers. The long ones are the 24 sections above.
Who do you recommend?
Who do you recommend to help me get my house ready to sell in Delaware?
Start with the agent who will actually market the home, because they are the one who has to sell what the pictures show. A good listing agent walks your home before anything is booked, tells you which repairs are worth the money and which are not, and brings in the cleaners, painters, landscapers and stagers worth calling.
For Delaware sellers, that is what Team Sordelet does. David Sordelet is the Designated Broker of Real Broker, LLC and team leader, with over 20 years and 1,000+ transactions across Delaware and Maryland. He walks the home with you first, before you spend a dollar.
Want that walkthrough for your own home? Ask us or call 302-613-4228.
Who do you recommend if I am selling for the first time?
Look for someone who will explain the sequence rather than just list the house — what happens first, what it costs, and what you can skip. First-time sellers most often lose money by fixing the wrong things in the wrong order.
On our team, David Sordelet handles most listings and works through this guide with sellers room by room. Iris Sordelet, licensed since 2002, also specializes in first-time buyers and sellers and increasingly brings listings of her own.
Not sure where to start? We will walk it with you.
Who do you recommend if I am selling and buying at the same time?
You want one team on both sides of the move, not two agents who have never spoken. The timing of your sale, your financing, and your purchase all have to line up, and that coordination is the whole job.
This is a case where a team genuinely beats a solo agent: David Sordelet can run the listing while Rasmey Hun or Iris Sordelet works the buy side, and both sides sit in the same weekly conversation.
Want the printable version? Download the checklist.
Who do you recommend if I need an agent licensed in Pennsylvania or Maryland too?
Ask directly which states an agent is licensed in before you sign anything — a Delaware-only license cannot write your purchase across the line.
Marshall Manlove has been licensed in Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania since 2017 and handles multi-state moves. Jie Yang is also licensed in all three. David Sordelet holds a Delaware associate broker license and a Maryland license, and works the Maryland Eastern Shore.
Wondering what your home needs? Ask for an honest read.
Who do you recommend if English is not my first language?
Ask for an agent who speaks your language rather than one who will hand you a translated PDF. Contracts, inspection reports and lender conversations move quickly, and a misunderstanding in the middle of a deal is expensive.
Jie Yang is fluent in Mandarin and English and has an accounting background. Damaris Pacheco is bilingual in English and Spanish and works with first-time buyers, sellers and investors.
Want to know who would handle your listing? See the team.
Who do you recommend if I am renting now and want to buy?
Find a buyer specialist rather than a listing agent doing buyer work on the side. The questions are different and the pace is different.
Rasmey Hun has been licensed since 2015 and is our buyer specialist — guiding renters into homeownership is the part of the job she has built her practice around. She works Wilmington, Newark, Middletown, Dover and the surrounding communities.
Want that walkthrough for your own home? Ask us or call 302-613-4228.
Who do you recommend for downsizing or an investment property?
These are different problems from a standard move. Downsizing is usually about timing and equity; investment property is about numbers, tenants and what an appraiser will actually support.
Iris Sordelet, licensed since 2002, specializes in downsizing and investment properties alongside first-time buyers. Christina Foster, a Delaware native licensed since 2014, also works with buyers, sellers and investors.
Not sure where to start? We will walk it with you.
Should I hire a real estate team or a single agent?
A solo agent gives you one person who knows everything about your deal. The risk is availability: when they are at a closing, on vacation, or handling somebody else's inspection, your showing does not happen.
A team gives you coverage, a listing specialist who lists and a buyer specialist who works buyers, and support staff who keep paperwork and deadlines moving. The risk is the opposite one — on a very large team you can become a file number handed between people who have never met you.
The version worth looking for is a team small enough that the person you hired is still the person you talk to. Ask any team directly: who will actually be at my showings, and who answers the phone on a Sunday?
Want the printable version? Download the checklist.
How is Team Sordelet different from the big lead-generation teams?
David has seen both sides of this. He previously ran a Zillow Flex team, and left because of how that model worked in practice: heavy pressure on conversion volume, buyers steered toward the in-house lender, and a required marketing package regardless of whether it suited the property. He found it burned out agents and did not serve clients well.
We built this team the other way around. You work with the agent you chose. Financing advice is not tied to one lender. And the preparation on this page happens before we ever book a photographer, because the goal is your result, not the marketing package.
Wondering what your home needs? Ask for an honest read.
What areas of Delaware do you cover?
We work across all three Delaware counties — New Castle, Kent and Sussex — including Wilmington, Newark, Hockessin, Middletown, Bear, New Castle, Smyrna, Dover and Cheswold, Camden and Wyoming, Harrington and Felton, the Sussex County beaches and inland Sussex.
David is also licensed in Maryland and works the Eastern Shore, and Marshall Manlove and Jie Yang are licensed in Pennsylvania.
Want to know who would handle your listing? See the team.
Getting the home ready
What is the first thing I should do to get my house ready to sell?
Remove things. Before cleaning, before painting, before any repair, take out the excess furniture, the collections, the family photographs and the countertop clutter. It costs almost nothing and it changes how large every room reads in a photograph.
The National Association of REALTORS® found decluttering is the single most common improvement sellers' agents recommend, at 91%, ahead of cleaning at 88% and curb appeal at 77%.
Want that walkthrough for your own home? Ask us or call 302-613-4228.
What should I do before the photographer comes?
Clear every countertop, make every bed, open every blind, turn on every light, turn off the ceiling fans, close the toilet lids, hide the trash cans and pet items, and move the cars off the driveway. Then walk each room and look at it from the doorway.
The full room-by-room list is on this page, and the 48-hour countdown near the bottom is the version most sellers actually use.
Not sure where to start? We will walk it with you.
Is it worth staging my home before photos?
For most homes, yes — though staging usually means editing what you already own rather than renting furniture. In NAR's 2025 research, 83% of buyers' agents said staging made it easier for a buyer to picture the property as their future home, and 31% said buyers were more willing to walk through a home they had seen staged online.
Want the printable version? Download the checklist.
Should I repair everything before listing, or sell as-is?
Neither extreme. Fix the cheap, visible things — a dripping faucet, failed caulk, a broken switch plate, holes in the wall, burned-out bulbs — because a handful of small defects makes buyers wonder what large ones are hiding.
Hold off on the big capital items like roof, HVAC, windows and full remodels until you and your agent have looked at what the market actually rewards. Sellers routinely spend $30,000 solving a $10,000 problem.
Wondering what your home needs? Ask for an honest read.
Do professional listing photos really make a difference?
They are the most important marketing asset you have. 73% of buyers' agents told NAR that listing photos were highly important to their clients — ahead of video at 48% and virtual tours at 43%.
Buyers decide in seconds whether a home is worth a showing, and they make that decision entirely from images.
Want to know who would handle your listing? See the team.
How long does it take to get a house ready for listing photos?
Most homes need one to three weeks. The cleaning and clearing is a weekend or two; the variable is repairs and any painting, which depend on how much you take on and how quickly you can get a trade scheduled.
Book the media session only once the work is genuinely finished. Rescheduling a shoot costs far less than launching with photographs of a half-ready house.
Want that walkthrough for your own home? Ask us or call 302-613-4228.
What is Media Day?
Media Day is the single session where everything that will market your home gets captured: professional photography, property video, drone footage where it makes sense, a 3D or virtual tour, and the social and web images that follow. It happens before the home goes on the market.
It matters because these assets are permanent. Once your listing goes live, the images are what thousands of buyers use to decide whether your home is worth their Saturday.
Not sure where to start? We will walk it with you.
You only get one chance to launch.
Take the checklist and work through it at your own pace. When you are ready, we will walk your home together, decide what is worth doing and what isn't, and set a Media Day that shows it at its best.
Or reach David directly — call or text 302-613-4228
Sources & further reading
Every statistic on this page is drawn from published industry research. Read it yourself — these are all worth a homeowner's time.
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National Association of REALTORS® — 2025 Profile of Home Staging
The primary source for the photo, video and virtual tour figures, the 83% visualization statistic, the room-by-room rankings, and the decluttering / cleaning / curb appeal recommendations.
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NAR — Report Reveals Home Staging Boosts Sale Prices and Reduces Time on Market
The press summary of the 2025 study, with the price and days-on-market findings stated plainly.
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NAR Consumer Guide — Staging Your House for a Sale
Homeowner-facing guidance on decluttering, depersonalizing, neutral paint, half-full closets, and photographing your own rooms to see what stands out.
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NAR Consumer Guide — Preparing to Sell Your Home
Pre-sale inspections, getting repair estimates for big-ticket items, cosmetic improvements, and gathering appliance warranties and manuals.
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NAR Consumer Guide — Marketing Your Home
How staging, professional photography, the MLS, signage and pricing work together — the closest fit to the Media Day idea.
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NAR — How One Stager Prepared Her Own Home for the Market
A practical walkthrough: siding, shutters, light fixtures, a repainted front door, neutralizing and depersonalizing.
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Zillow — Real Estate Photography Tips for Home Sellers
The best practical source for Media Day itself: deep cleaning, decluttering, depersonalizing, pet accessories, open blinds, lights on, clean windows, removing screens, and timing the shoot for the light.
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Zillow — 3 Must-Do's Before Listing Your House for Sale
Supports the repair and maintenance sections: leaking faucets, caulk and grout, neutral paint, bulbs, gutters, driveways and curb appeal.
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Zillow — How to Prepare for an Open House
Useful on the marketing side: 3D tours, video walkthroughs and drone imagery as part of the online listing.
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Redfin — A Real Estate Photographer's Perspective: 12 Tips for Staging Your House for Photos
Written by a working real estate photographer (December 2025). Matching bulb temperatures, crisp linens, clean glass, dusting the vents and baseboards that show up in high-resolution images.
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Redfin — It's All in the Details: 8 Small Tips for Staging Your House to Sell
The source for the front-door test: what buyers notice while they stand there waiting for the agent to open the lockbox.
