Home Staging Tips for Selling Your Home Faster
If you’re selling your home in today’s market, there are a lot of homes to compete with. So how do you get an edge on the competition? Home staging has been shown to have a lot of influence over buyers, but it does take a bit of work on your part. Outside of making sure that your home would pass an inspection, these cosmetic changes can make all the difference in how quickly you sell.
Follow these quick home staging tips:
Declutter: When you live in your house and see it every day, it can be difficult to see your home in a new light. Really take a hard look at your rooms and remove any clutter. This goes for stacks of magazines, refrigerator magnets, storage boxes, and stacks of mail. Clutter can make a homebuyer think there’s no storage in the home, which could scare away your potential buyer.
Depersonalize: Yes, your dog is the cutest, but your potential buyer may be a cat person! Remove anything personal in your home, like photos of your family, sports flags outside, or any religious items. Your potential buyers need to be able to envision themselves living there, and if your house still feels like you, they may not be able to get past that.
Clean and repair: Walk through your home and take note of any spots or items that need to be fixed. That creaky door? That loose doorknob? That peeling paint? You may have been able to live with it, but your potential buyer could take those as a sign of more serious fixes, like those that could turn up in a home inspection.
Neutralize colors: While you may have a fiery personality, your home’s wall colors shouldn’t – at least when it’s on the market. Tone wall colors down by painting them neutral shades like tan, cream, grey, or other earth tones. Buyers don’t want to envision themselves having to paint walls as soon as they move in. Give your home the hotel test: If you wouldn’t see the wall color in a mainstream hotel chain, you should probably paint over it.
Minimize furniture: When you own a home, you sometimes tend to accumulate furniture. Grandma’s chest of drawers, your mother’s rocking chair, or that extra TV that never seemed to work can all take up unnecessary space. While you don’t want a sparse room, you do want to give homebuyers the feeling of openness. Putting extra furniture in storage or selling it before you’re on the market is a great way to add “extra” square footage to your home.
Get snoopy: When buyers tour your home, they’re going to be nosy – and rightfully so. Closet space, organizational units, and shelving in the kitchen are all things that today’s home buyers want to see, so don’t shove all of your unwanted clutter into the closet. This could signal to them that there’s not enough storage or that the current homeowners are messy.
Follow these tips and you should receive offers in no time!