When you are selling your home you need to properly represent or stage your home. Staging a home creates a feel for your house that potential buyers will appreciate the first time they view your house (whether in pictures or in person). In today's market, it's important to take the time to set the stage for a quick, full-price sale. Selling a house is not an easy task and you have to devote some time to get ready for it.
Here are some tips for staging your house:
Boost The Appeal
In order to attract a buyer to come through the front door, you have to pay attention to your curb appeal. Power wash the walkways, driveway and house siding to create a cleaner look. In our area, you also need to pay attention to any moss on your roof. A mossy roof, or mildew/green patches on the house or driveway give a dingy/dull appearance and make the potential buyer wonder what other parts of the house have been neglected. Cracks on a concrete driveway should be repaired. Worn away paint or stain on your front steps needs to be spruced up too.
Outside the house hang some easy-to-read house numbers and keep some blooming flowers in your flower beds and in pots (hanging or otherwise) out front. Wash the front windows and if there are any stains repaint it. All these will accentuate the look of your house.
The Home Should be Neat and Tidy
A neat and tidy house attracts buyers. If they are unable to look past your clutter to picture themselves living there, then you've lost a potential buyer. Make sure that the house is sparkling clean with neat and clean closet, bedroom, kitchen and clean bathrooms.
Clean the Clutter
If you have kids or children at house then a heap of toys or a clutter of clothes over the bed or floor is quite common. Pets can also create their own messes of toys and equipment. Even adults can keep large volumes of personal items laying around. Yes, the potential buyer recognizes that a person still lives in the house... but they still want to walk into a model home. Remove half the items in your closet - a large closet begins to look like a small closet when you have it operating at max capacity. A potential buyer will envision more storage space when it appears that you were unable to even utilize all the space available while living there.
In the kitchen, remove all items from your refrigerator (time to pack up you're child's A+ on the spelling test and recent art creation). Remove all items from your countertop as well (if possible). The less items on the counter, the more potential counter space available and you can never present too much cooking space. Yes, we recognize you still live there, but it is an easy step to remove your favorite toaster, canisters, cooking equipment and even coffee maker. If your counter space is limited, remove it all.
Rearrange Your Furniture
Before the buyers pay a visit to your house, make sure that all the pieces of furniture are at their right places. Rearranging the furniture neatly is very important. If your dining room is large, accentuate this with a large table and chairs. If it's cramped, remove any extra table leaves and remove some of the chairs to not show how cramped the situation can be. Decorate the top of the table with a vase and flowers as well as decorative plates, napkins and glassware that you might use for entertaining.
In your living areas, accentuate focal features by positioning the furniture properly. For example, do not block a fireplace with your coach, instead re-position the coach so that someone sitting in it would be facing the fireplace. Remove over-sized furniture and opt for smaller pieces. While the large furniture might show that you can fit big pieces in the room, it also takes up a lot of space and can make the room appear smaller. Set the stage with decorative items like throw pillows and soft blankets to make potential buyers feel at home.
Beware The Odor
Staging a home doesn't just stop when things look good, it also needs to smell good. The use of air fresheners can help with this. You could opt to turn on a wax tart burner for a few hours before showing your house. If you don't happen to have that much time, add a couple cinnamon sticks to boiling water for a few minutes as this scent seems to over power a lot of other common household odors.
You want to sell your home for top-dollar, and setting up an environment that is welcoming to many people is the best way to do this. So take the time to remove some of your personal items and rearrange things to make it more inviting to others. Although it may not be the easiest home to live in for a week or so, it will help you to quickly move on to your next home.
