Most buyers know how they feel about a house before they've got their shoes off, something I've watched happen at a lot of front doors. Here's what they're reacting to.
At the front door
The showing starts on your front step. While I get the key out of the lockbox, buyers look at whatever is in front of them: the paint on the door, the railing, the mailbox, the mat. If the showing is in the evening, leave the porch light on.
Then buyers take their shoes off, which in an Ottawa winter means a minute or so of unlacing boots in your front hall with nothing to do but look around. Put the pile of shoes and the extra coats away and leave out a boot tray, so there's an obvious place for wet boots.
The smell
A bad smell is the quickest way to lose a buyer. I've had people ask to leave before we even got past the front hall, whether it was a damp basement, a pet, last night's dinner or too much air freshener.
I'd run a dehumidifier in the basement for a few weeks before you list to get the humidity and the musty smell out. I'd also open the windows for at least 10 minutes before each showing, even if it's winter. If you have a cat or a dog, eliminate as many traces of their existence as possible, which I know can be hard, but it's well worth it. Many buyers, even if they like pets, just have trouble feeling at home with pet smells around.
The light
The next thing buyers react to is how bright the house feels. Since Ottawa gets dark before five in December and a lot of showings happen after work, many buyers see your house after dark for a good part of the year.
Luckily, light is the cheapest thing on this list to fix. Before a showing, turn on every light (closets and basement included) and open the blinds if it's daytime. It also helps to replace any dead bulbs and use the same colour of bulb within a room, so a yellow lamp isn't sitting next to a blue-white ceiling light.
Small repairs
On the walk-through, buyers keep a running list: a dripping tap, a cabinet door that hangs crooked, a missing outlet cover, chipped paint on the stairs. None of it costs much, but buyers can feel overwhelmed by the growing list in their head. They're also bad at pricing repairs, so they almost always guess high. Five small things can quickly turn into "this place needs too much work," which can lead them to walk away or offer much less.
I wrote a separate post on what's worth fixing before you list, so I won't repeat it here.
What they barely notice
Sellers tend to worry about the oak cabinets or the bathroom vanity from the nineties, which buyers mostly walk right past. They saw the kitchen in the listing photos before they booked the showing, so a dated kitchen is usually already in the price they have in mind.
The roof and the furnace don't come up much in the first minute either, since buyers leave those for the home inspection, where they usually come back with a price attached.
Try it yourself
Before your first showing, go out your front door and stand on the step for a minute, then come back in, take your shoes off and look around like it's someone else's house. You'll catch most of what a buyer would, except the smell, which you stopped noticing a long time ago.
Getting ready to list?
I'll walk through your house before the first showing and tell you what buyers are going to say, smell included.