If your home has been listed on the market for any amount of time, you know that the boom times of getting multiple offers within 24 hours are long gone. Today's buyers can be much more choosy. In addition to the overall quality, location and price of the home, buyers will be looking at the style, or even worse, lack of style, of each room. It is essential to make your home look as enticing as possible to grab the buyer's interest. Home Staging is the key.
Research Popular Styles
The country style that you spent so much time perfecting may actually be turning away potential buyers. Having too specific of a style throughout a home can discourage viewers. However, having no style, or even worse, an empty home, could hurt your chances of making a sale even further. Buyers want to be able to envision their dream home, which includes well decorated and furnished rooms.
However, if they can't see past an unsightly color or ugly piece of furniture, a sale will never happen. When done right, home staging allows a buyer to take mental pictures of the way they would want the home to look. Incorporate home staging styles that work after researching home decorating magazines, visiting the local home decorating store, and visiting open houses in your community. Don't forget to take notes of what did and didn't work.
Rearrange Furniture
Are you using the kitchen as your personal home office? Does the master bedroom double as a home gym? Are your clothes spread out across the bed because of a lack of closet space? Turn each room into what it is actually meant to be used for. Thin out your closets, take out any items that shouldn't be in a room, and put out-of-place furniture and clutter in storage for the time being. Home staging allows buyers to see the potential a room has and not be scared that a home is too small or not laid out efficiently.
Remove Personal Items
The extensive pictures of friends and relatives on the walls, piles of Christmas cards on display and wall of college diplomas are impressive, but they can also make potential buyers feel like the home is already too established and that they are intruding and don't belong. Placing collections in storage will allow buyers to vision their belongings in each room while not having to mentally remove yours. Home staging doesn't require you to remove all personal items, so while it's ok to leave up a family picture or two, don't leave up too many items that will make buyers feel overwhelmed or unwelcome.
Clean and Organize
Dust bunnies in the corner aren't fun to clean, but potential buyers don't want to see them either. Make certain that your home is in the cleanest condition it's ever been in, even if that means hiring a cleaning service.
The First Impression
You've spent so much time re-arranging the inside of your home that it's easy to think all bases are covered. Not so! Home staging includes the outside of a home just as much as it does the inside. Make sure that the outside of your home reflects the natural beauty as much as possible. It should be well manicured: grass cut, flowers planted, paint refreshed, cracks filled. You will never get a second chance to make a great first impression.
Add Warmth and Charm
You've taken down the dozens of family pictures and put the trophy collection in storage, but adding a warm, personal touch can still be a great benefit of home staging. The final step in home staging includes placing some colorful flowers in each room as well as the front entrance, baking some cookies while home is being shown, or lighting your favorite scented candle. Little touches like these allow buyers to see how enticing your home can be.
