When the time come to sell your home, quicker is always better. You want to show off all that is wonderful about your home and minimize that which isn’t. The buyer needs to be able to focus on the house. The better your home looks and feels, the faster it will sell. There is much that can be done to help your home sell quickly. Staging your home is one of them. Properly staging your home is worth every moment of your time.
- Pack Away Personal Items – Your home is full of memories. To you. To a potential buyer those memories are clutter. Family pictures are very distracting. Anything that personalizes your home needs to be removed. You want the buyer to be able to look at your home and see it as theirs.
- Declutter & Organize – You want your home to appeal to a large variety of people. Minimizing and neutralizing each room is the easiest way to accomplish this. The less you have in a room the larger the room will appear. This includes furniture. Removing excess furniture will go a long way in increasing the appearance of a room. Organization is important. Besides removing the clutter, this shows the buyers what there is for potential storage.
- Clean and Deodorize – This is critical. Nothing will turn away a buyer quicker than a dirty stinky home. Smells are the easiest to miss. A good trick to this is to have someone that doesn’t live in the home to check it out. Pet smells are hard to get rid of. If there is a concern that the pet smells are lingering then the day of the showing you can burn candles or bake cookies, opening a window, a bit ahead of time, will get the air circulating throughout the house. You want to clean your home in a way that you would feel safe to eat off of any surface in your home.
- Decor – There are aspects of your decor that can make or break the appearance of your home. Your walls, the items in the rooms, the curtains or blinds and the lighting. What is appealing to us isn’t necessarily appealing to others. This is why you want your decor and wall colors neutral. Our homes are drastically under lite. A brighter room is more appealing. The decor items should be grouped in three’s with varied heights. Wall decor should be hung at eye level. Anywhere higher or lower and it becomes a distraction.
- Curb Appeal – You only get one chance at a first impression. Your curb appeal is that first impression. If the outside of your home doesn’t make a good first impression, that negativity will follow them and cloud their judgment throughout the house. You want the outside to look well taken care of. The sidewalks, porches, siding, windows, and driveway all need to be clean. The yard should be freshly cut and well maintained.
During your preparations, you might find yourself needing to purchase items such as curtains, blankets, or towels. You’re not going to want to spend a lot of money on the staging process. By doing an online search you will find websites, such as Groupon.com, with the discount codes and coupons that a merchant is offering at that time. This search will help you save money on items that you buy online or in a brick and mortar store. Once everything comes together, you will have a home that is staged to impress.