Every month millions of Americans sell their homes. In February 2019, there were 4.94 million home sales.
Are you ready to sell your home and become a part of these enormous monthly statistics?
If you are then you probably want your home to look as appealing as possible to buyers. In order to do this, you have to be strategic. Being strategic when showing a home means that you stage it.
Staging a home requires careful planning and precision. It may take a bit of time but it is well worth the effort because homes that are staged will sell faster and that is undoubtedly what you want.
Here are some tips for staging your home the right way.
1. Remove Clutter
Spaciousness in a home makes it very attractive. The effect of clutter is two-fold in that it not only distracts potential buyers it also restricts walking space. You should remove furniture and other items that make rooms appear less spacious.
Rearrange the furniture and items that you have left to create a more spacious look. When you are finished with your decluttering you should be able to walk freely through your home.
2. Manage Your Time
When its time to show your home, you need to move quickly this means that you have to pick the most important rooms to stage. The most often visited rooms during a showing are the kitchen, master bedroom, living room, and your bathrooms.
These are the rooms you should be focusing on first to ensure that your visitors will be impressed. It’s not that you shouldn’t stage other rooms, they are just best left alone until you have staged the most important ones.
The bottom line is that if you are working with limited resources, stage the most visited rooms first.
3. Personal Items Must Go
Imagination is a powerful thing, and when you are showing a home you want potential buyers to imagine themselves living in the home. However, you will make this difficult for them if you have personal belongings lying all over the place.
Get rid of the family heirlooms, pictures, awards, and personal equipment. When you do this it becomes easier for a buyer to see your home as their space.
You can put your personal belongings in storage for a while until you secure a buyer.
4. Accessorize to the Max
After you have cleared away all the clutter and removed all your personal items, it’s time to dress up your home with the right accessories.
You can buy flowers, paintings with nice neutral colors, candles and whatever else you can think of that will make the house feel like a home.
5. Add Lights
A home that is dark and gloomy will create the same mood in a potential buyer. If you can trim trees and bushes in order to let in more light then do it.
Evaluate your home carefully, go into every room and look at how lit the room is. If you find areas that are dim then put lamps in strategic places especially if the home will be viewed mostly in the afternoon or in winter when sunlight is limited or non-existent.
6. It’s Time to Deep Clean
Cleanliness is one of the most important factors to consider when you are staging your home. You will need to do a deep clean. If possible hire a professional cleaning service to do it for you.
Everything needs to be immaculate as it tells a potential buyer that the home is well taken care of and worth their time and investment.
If the windows need cleaning and the floor needs scrubbing or if the ceiling needs painting then now is the time to do it. Scrub the walls if necessary, whatever you do just make the home look more habitable.
Remove anything that may cause offensive odors such as garbage in the kitchen on viewing days. You can also use scents in your home to psychologically affect buyers.
Bake a nice batch of cookies right before your visitors come by in order to have the house smelling yummy. You can also use floral scented plugins to give the house a fresh scent.
The more you use the atmosphere and even scents to your advantage the quicker you will make a sale.
7. What Colors are You Using?
Bright colors can turn off buyers from your home. This is because they are very distracting.
You can declutter to create space as well as accessorize and have all of that go to waste simply because the colors in your home have become a distraction.
You can fix bright colors by painting them over with more neutral colors such as white, grey and taupe so that your viewers can actually imagine which colors they would like to have.
8. Clean Up Outside Too
The outside of your home is the first thing that a potential buyer will see. After all, it is usually the first picture you would place on this site or any other real estate listing site.
While you will need to spend a lot of time staging the inside of your home to make it just right. You should not neglect to make sure the outside of the home looks enticing as well.
This means that you should make ensure there is no chipped or peeling paint outside and that the gutters are not hanging down. In general, you need to make sure that nothing looks shabby.
This also includes the look of your lawn. A beautiful lawn increases curb appeal and it immediately makes your home look well taken care of from the outside.
Final Tips for Staging Your Home
When all is said and done a home is not sold without some sort of strategic planning. While you need to plan the perfect words for your listing and focus on getting a good real estate agent, you need to ensure that you know some good tips for staging your home, if you want it to sell fast.
The most important thing is to present your home in the best light to a potential buyer. This is why staging is so important because it helps you to control how things look and how the home is perceived by a potential buyer.
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