If you want to sell your home faster, you need to be smart about where you invest your time and resources. Not every room or feature is equally important, real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran tells CNBC Make It. "Realize that the buyer walks in and judges that house within 30 seconds," she says. So focus on the areas that prospective buyers will see immediately. To make a great first impression and help your home sell faster, invest in three specific areas that the buyer will notice right away.

1. The exterior

The first thing a buyer is going to see is the front of your house, including features like your front door, mailbox, lawn and driveway. To make sure your buyer gets a good first impression, "you want to spruce up the front entrance to your house, repaint the door, make sure the bushes look good, make sure the garden looks in order and power-wash the sidewalk and the driveway," says Corcoran. Real estate expert Sean Conlon agrees that your home's street presence, or "curb appeal," is crucial. "Your lawn should look beautiful," he tells Make It. "Your shrubs should be nice and colorful and well taken care of. ... Your shutters and windows should look nice. When people pull up, they should go, 'I could picture myself pulling up in the evening and this being my home.'" Curb appeal is the reason Conlon says it's even OK to spend five figures on a custom door: "When you are renovating a house you want to find ways to make it stand out from all the other homes on the market and what better way than having the most beautiful entrance on the block? Buyers lap that stuff up."

2. The living room

Focusing on the living room is critical because "people will judge the entire size of the house based on the living room," says Corcoran. To make the living room seem more spacious, buy a bigger rug, she says: "Buyers will judge the size of a room based on the size of the rug." Besides investing in a rug, "make sure your lighting is updated and make sure you have slipcovers that look fresh."

Realize that the buyer walks in and judges that house within 30 seconds. Barbara Corcoran

3. The kitchen