Preparing your home for a sale can be a challenge. While you likely love your home as it is, when selling, you have to get into a buyer’s state of mind. Potential buyers want to see a home that they can imagine themselves in and not one that another family highly occupies. This practice is known as staging, or setting up your home in a way that lacks personal touches but lets buyers see what your home has to offer.
If you work with a real estate agent, they will likely recommend that you do some staging or have an expert come in to prepare your home for viewing. In fact, realtors claim that homes that are properly staged bring in more interest and sell quicker than homes that don’t take the time to prepare.
Whether you are selling a house with a mortgage or buying your first home, the staging process is a good time to start letting go of your home. Removing personal touches and bringing the features of your home into view can help you to start your transition process. Let’s take a closer look at a few tips to help you stage your home for sale.
Curb Appeal
Most buyers admit that they make up their minds about a house before getting in the front door. The outside impression that you need to give to potential buyers should be welcoming and cozy. You want to draw interest from the perspective of the street view of your home. Start by cleaning up your landscaping and making sure that your lawn is maintained correctly.
Take a look at your paint and add a new coat in places where it may look worn or faded. It can be helpful to add a brighter shade of paint to your garage or front doors to set your home apart from the others.
Once your landscaping is complete, take a look at your gardens and decide how to spruce up your front beds. Use color psychology by planting yellow or white flowers that relate to a calm and welcoming feeling.
Front Entryway
You will want to turn your entryway from a simple porch to a grand entrance. Clean up the space and make sure that you have swept away any debris and cleared away any cobwebs. Add a welcoming mat to your front door and ensure that your street numbers are updated and easy to see from the street.
Take advantage of your porch space to create a vignette that reflects the style and location of your home. You can add a pair of Adirondack chairs for a mountain retreat or a beach bungalow; you can add some marine-styled decor and light colors.
Deep Cleaning
No one wants to view a home that looks or smells dirty. If you’re going to make an impression on those touring your home, you will have to take the time to do a deep cleaning. Your guest buyers will be looking at your home with a critical eye, so there is no place that shouldn’t be cleaned thoroughly. Add these chores to your list:
- Wash the floors or shampoo the carpeting
- Clean the kitchen countertops and sinks
- Wash the walls and windows
- Dust the blinds and wash the shades
- Clean the bathroom, including the tub and shower
- Reorganize all the closets
- Clean out the medicine cabinet
- Reorganize all storage areas
Declutter
It can be difficult for buyers to see the real potential of a home when it is full of clutter. Counters packed with small appliances, closets crammed with clothes, and shelves overflowing with knick-knacks can leave the wrong impression for buyers.
Now is the time to start your packing process. Remove all small items that aren’t essential to your everyday routine and pack them away for your move. If you aren’t ready to pack, you can rent a storage container for your excess belongings.
Depersonalize
To create a home that potential buyers can envision themselves in, you have to display a blank canvas. When you keep personal items like memorabilia and multiple family photos, guests tend to feel like they are intruding in the home. To depersonalize your space, remove most of your pictures and family items from view and pack them away.
It’s also a good idea to take away any unique decor items that reflect your personality. You want your buyers to see the scope of each room and not to focus on your decorating choices.
Focus On the Main Rooms
Trying to stage every room in your home may be challenging and take more time than you have to dedicate to the chore. It’s better to concentrate your efforts on the main rooms of your home. Your living room, dining room, master bedroom, and kitchen should be the rooms that are properly staged. Along with your main rooms, you may want to stage areas of your home that contain a particular feature.
Furniture Flow
When staging your home, you will need to take a step back to consider your current furniture configurations. You want to make each of your rooms look larger and highly functional. You may need to remove or replace some items to maximize each space. Make sure that potential buyers can move easily around the area with no blockages. Moving your furniture away from the walls creates the illusion of more space. Getting rid of bulky furnishings like large sectionals and replacing them with smaller items can make your room look larger.
Lighting
You don’t want your home to look dark or dreary when staging your home for your tour. Guests want to see a bright and cheery space. While your heavy drapes may be great for privacy, they should be removed and replaced with a more sheer and airy choice for your staging.
Make sure that all of your windows are crystal clear clean both inside and out. Your clean windows will allow more natural light to enter the space and make it look larger and fresher. People want to see the size of your windows, so make sure that your blinds are opened or your heavy shades are removed.
Pay attention to your artificial lighting. To create a uniform look and feel, ensure that all of your fixtures use the same type and wattage of bulb. In areas of your home that don’t get much natural light, make sure you light them up with a lamp or an overhead light fixture.
Selling your home is all about making it look irresistible to potential buyers. Take some time to consider what buyers want to see when prepping your home for sale. Follow these tips to stage your home and help you to sell your home quickly.
