Tips for Staging Your Home

Living Room Makeover

Let the Light Shine Through!

When selling your home and showing it to potential buyers, be sure to let the light shine through! 

Remove heavy drapery or dark window coverings that make the entire house appear dark.  Do use lighter fabrics in bright, neutral colors or use no window coverings at all to allow more natural light into each room.  If you don’t have time to remove heavy or dark window treatments, be sure to open them during showings to get the maximum amount of light into the room.  Of course, also be sure to open all blinds that mask the view and block natural light from entering. 

The key is to lightly frame and highlight the windows while bringing in as much natural light as possible.  The end result is a home that feels light, airy, and more spacious - all three of which will add value and attract more interest from potential buyers.

Staging to Sell

Do You Have to Repay Your Homebuyer Credit?

Do You Have to Repay Your Homebuyer Credit?

Closets – don’t forget about them when selling your home!

Closet space leaves a BIG and LASTING impression on buyers.  Picture those new construction/model homes . . . how neutral the paint colors are throughout the home, how clean all of the shiny surfaces are in the kitchen and bathrooms, how perfectly to-scale and arranged all of the furniture is in each room, and how spacious all of the closets appear to be! 

One way to appeal to buyers, especially female buyers (i.e., the buyers that play a big role in deciding which house they or their family put an offer on), is to make the closets in your home appear just as spacious as those empty closets in model homes.  In other words, when staging your home to sell for top-dollar, don’t stop the de-cluttering short of the closets! 

Pack away any items that aren't bein used such as seasonal clothing and linens.  Also, pack away toys, office stuff, or any other items that are hogging your closet space.  Make sure that your closets feature clean walls, lots of light, and small scented satchels so they smell fresh.  Closets that look large, organized, and clean add value to your house.  Help potential buyers see and feel that they would have the perfect place for all of their belongings.

Home Staging: Who cares, right? WRONG!

• Before I divulge anymore of my priceless home staging tips, let me take a step back and talk about why home staging is so crucial to selling a home.

Home staging is the prep-work to your home’s job interview.  Think of each new showing as a job interview with the CEO of a company interviewing you.   Staging is like doing the preparation before a job interview.  You want to be prepared before you set up the appointment to meet with the big-wigs (i.e., the folks that want to put money in your pocket)! 

Make sure that you have, at minimum, the same qualifications as the competition.  In a job interview, the competition is all of the other job candidates, and in a showing the competition is all of the other houses in your market.  On top of that, you want to make sure that you have one or two outstanding features that set you apart to stand above the competition.  Further, be prepared to showcase all of your home’s stand-apart features multiple times before you land that perfect buyer!

Bottom line:  in yesterday’s market you might fly by the seat of your pants and rely on your quick wit to get the job – in today’s market you must do the home staging to prove that your home, above all the others, is worth the investment!