Staging is the art of preparing your home for sale before showing it to prospective buyers. It’s not so much decorating as it is marketing. The point of staging is to highlight the house’s strengths, downplay its weaknesses and make it more appealing to the broadest audience of potential buyers.
With the right staging techniques, you can win buyers over the moment they step through the door. To help make your house irresistible to potential buyers,here are a few staging tips:
Put Everything Away
The first step is to put away anything that is not essential. This will open up the house so that it appears more spacious. Even if you have to rent a storage unit, finding a new home for all of your family’s projects and debris should clear some space and help buyers imagine their own stuff in your home for sale.
Get Rid Of Clutter
Things that have meaning to us, or that may be useful in our daily routines have no meaning or use to potential buyers. They want to see clear and open space for their things. Stow away the things that gather on kitchen counters and surfaces, such as old magazines and stacks of mail. Store away those condiments, spices, personal products, medications and gadgets that you may keep out for regular use to a handy, but out of sight, cupboard or drawer. Better yet, if it’s just out for looks and you can live without “it” for a few weeks while you’re on market – send it off to storage.
Also, emptying out your closets and cupboards of half of the things inside them will make them look much roomier. Keep in service just enough plates, mugs, glassware for one meal, maybe two depending on how many people live in your household. Storing or getting rid of half of whatever you have is a good rule.
If you’re on sale in the spring, pack away the parkas and the boots. Donate them if they are no longer of use. Look on the bright side; moving into a new house will be much easier after you have donated your unneeded items to a charity.
Fresh Scents Make Sense
You would be surprised by how much the sense of smell comes into play when buyers are viewing a house. To avoid turning them off with pet or smoke odors, make sure you give each room a deep clean, including the air vents and carpeting. Just covering up stale odors with air fresheners won’t do the job and strong artificial fragrances can end up being more offensive. Simply cleaning goes a long way to creating A fresh smelling home. Open the windows regularly and for as long as possible, let Mother Nature (fresh, natural oxygen) do her thing.
Let In The Light
Buyers are looking for spacious rooms with a lot of natural light, so make sure you open the blinds and turn on all the lights. If you have rooms that are a bit dark, you can add floor lamps to make them brighter or flowers to suggest sunlight. In the evenings while you’re on market and whether you are home or away, your place should be lit up like a Broadway stage until you’re sold.
Staging can make a big difference in how potential buyers visualize your home as their home, so make sure you set the mood to make it as attractive as possible.
Feel free to contact me, your trusted local real estate professional, at any time by phone at (905)940-3599 or by email at info@samjia.com if you have further questions or ideas; I look forwatrd to hearing from you sooner than later!
Uncle Sam's Real Estate Blog 