If you’re getting ready to sell your home, you’ll get the best results if you learn how to stage your home to sell fast. When we sold our last home nearly three years ago, we had buyers within a week. One of the reasons our home sold so very quickly is because we took the time to stage it well.
When buyers are shopping for a home, there are certain criteria they use to keep that home on the “yes” list, or to put it on the “no way” list. Some criteria that buyers are looking for is out of your hands, such as the number of bedrooms they need, the layout of the house they want or the neighborhood they want to live in.? Other factors, however, are well within your control, and when used properly, can give your home extra sparkle to potential buyers.
Any number of interior designers offer home staging services, but if a professional staging coach is not in your budget, learn from these tips how to stage your home to sell fast. There are tips and tricks you can use to stage your home in a way that will boost its appearance without draining your pocketbook.
Stage Your Home to Sell Fast by Decluttering
Decluttering?goes a LONG way in staging your home for a fast sale. When determining what to keep and what to pack up or get rid of, walk through your home as if you’re walking through a model home. Determine what furniture pieces and accessories add to the appeal of the home, and what furniture pieces and accessories look intrusive.
Find a balance between having a sparse amount of things in the house but not too sparse. Not enough furniture pieces and accessories will induce a feel of lack, which could ward off potential buyers. Make sure that dressers, counters and the refrigerator (both the top and the front) are clean and clear. Go through each room and closet and remove anything that might make the room or closet feel cramped or cluttered. Closets are especially important in terms of decluttering, as cramped closets can create the illusion that the home doesn’t have enough storage space.
De-Personalize Your Home
When potential buyers enter your home, they want to be able to envision themselves living there. This will be difficult for them to do if they see your personalized items everywhere. By “personalized” I mean anything with eyes and names.
Take down pictures of people and replace them with pictures of stuff, such as landscape pictures or floral pictures, put away stuffed animals, and put away anything that’s monogrammed. Give the house a bit of an anonymous feel so that potential buyers can see themselves there and not see you there.
Add Warmth to the Home
Casually but neatly lay a fashionable blanket over the arm of the couch. Place a “welcome” sign near your entryway. Have a bowl of mints on the kitchen counter for prospective buyers. Light a battery-operated candle in the bathroom. Make sure the home encompasses a warm welcome in every room.
Deep Clean the Home
Give your home a super-deep cleaning, both in the house/garage, and in the yard. Wipe down the baseboards, the doors, the cupboards and every square inch of the house. ?Cut the lawn and trim the bushes. Make your home sparkle like it’s never sparkled before.
Get the carpets and furniture professionally cleaned if they need it. Elbow-grease and hard work are free, and will create a move-in ready feel to potential buyers.
Paint
If your home needs it, give the rooms a coat of fresh paint. Make sure to stick with super-benign, neutral colors in light tones. One or two rooms with a bright color is okay if the bright color is in fashion, but if there are too many rooms with wild colors, potential buyers will only associate the home with work to be done.
Buy a Few Inexpensive Accessories
One of the best purchases we made when we sold our last home was a cheap but high-end looking coffee table with matching end-tables. The set was $115 at our local home improvement store, but it added scores of class to our formal living room.? This frugal purchase was part of the reason we sold our home so quickly. It aired of elegance and class, but hardly cost us anything.
Working to stage your home well before you put it on the market will help you entice the maximum amount of potential buyers available, and will help you sell your home?quicker?and hopefully at top dollar. Work to make sure you put your home’s best foot forward before you put it on the market.
Have you ever staged a home for sale? What do you look for when shopping for a potential home? Have you ever seen a home that completely ignored doing some of these things while still trying to sell it?
Photo courtesy of:?Derec Shuler
Wise Dollar
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I agree with you Laurie that we need to do some improvements when we want to sell our house more quickly and in a higher price. I painted my house, which I sold in a higher price, and improved it to really look that it was well maintained to make people feel like they couldn’t wait to settle and buy the house.
Exactly, Jayson! It really does make a home more appealing.
All great tips. My sister just sold her house the other day. I was over for a few days to help move things to storage and to paint. It’s amazing how much of a difference the small things make when staging your house for sale.
It really does make an impressive difference, doesn’t it!
Great tips! It’s amazing what a few simple things can do, like cleaning and staging. People don’t realize how small the things they notice are. If you take those small distractions away, they can actually picture themselves in the house as their home.
So true, Kalen! The less clutter/mess, the more people can envision themselves in the home.
We have sold three homes and I truly believe it all came down to our staging and the biggest key was de-cluttering. Our realtor told us that people want to imagine themselves in your home and it’s hard to imagine their stuff in your space when you have too much of your stuff in it to begin with. We also lit candles before potential buyers came to the house so that it smelled nice.
We did the same types of stuff, Shannon. A nice smell, some yummy mints: it screams “Hello, there! Welcome home!” 🙂
You are right. Staging goes a long way in selling a home. Having neutral and appealing colors on the walls is a big plus too.
Yeah, I agree on the neutral colors. Whenever I see a home on the Net or at an open house with bright colors, I just want to turn around and walk out.