7. Make it current. As much as possible, you want your home to give off a feeling of being up-to-date, trendy even — regardless of how long it’s been since you’ve bought furniture. But how do you do that? Sometimes professional stagers bring in rented furniture and lamps to impart a better vibe; the staging of multimillion-dollar homes can even involve bringing in “rental” artwork from museums. You can get some of the same effect, though, just by paring down your belongings and looking at what’s current these days.
Pick up magazines such as In-Style and Better Homes and Gardens to get ideas. Then pick and choose your furniture, and camouflage accordingly, if necessary. For example, what’s in today is more streamlined, clean look; the so-called “lumpy/bumpy” look is out. What to do with that puffy loveseat? Toss a slipcover over it to give it a sleeker appearance
5. Spend the money where it matters: out front. Use your time and money wisely. Studies show that the front porch is where prospective home buyers spend the most time, as they wait for the door to be unlocked. Paint the front door. Replace the brass light fixtures on the front porch if they’re too badly tarnished, or at least paint them. Place planters on each side of the door, as well, with flowers in vibrant colors that excite the eye.
Once inside, the foyer or entryway — if you have one — is where people will linger the longest in the house. “Wow them now!” Make sure the paint is a creamy neutral and fresh, and the flooring looks great. All you need for decor is a thin table, a lamp, a vase of fresh flowers. If you have a limited budget and can only afford to replace the entryway flooring or the guest bedroom carpeting, choose the foyer. It is the first impression.
4. Search and destroy odors. A popular saying, “If
Search and destroy odors
you can smell it, we can’t sell it.” A house that smells odd to a prospective homeowner — whether because of a cat’s litter box, or dogs, or exotic food — can easily be a deal breaker. Ask someone you trust to give you an honest answer whether your home has a distinct odor. Then tackle the problem, by steam-cleaning the carpets and furniture, moving litter boxes elsewhere, scrubbing the kitchen, etc. Finally, don’t try to mask anything with potpourri,or by baking cookies. Just open windows a few minutes before a showing to let in fresh air.
3. Hide the sword collection. Another name sometimes used for staging is “blanding”, and there’s a reason for it: Now’s the time to sell your space, not your personal tastes, because you never know what may turn off would-be-buyers. It’s got to appeal to everyone.
Remove family photos and religious items. Avoid themed bedrooms — a room with clowns, sports or superheroes. In order to appeal to a broad audience, you’ve got to take that away, or it will not sell.
Be a neat freak! This may go without saying, but the only thing as important as decluttering is having an immaculate house. That means steam-cleaning the carpets. Walls should be painted if needed. Pressure-washing outdoor decks and aluminum siding can do wonders for a home’s first impression and boost a home’s value. One place homeowners can never clean enough is the bathroom, stagers say. Toss out the bath mat; it’s probably a wreck. Declutter it ruthlessly, add a few candles, and hide all but one or two of the shampoo bottles.
1. Declutter. This is staging’s golden rule. Clutter isn’t just your average mess. Clutter is the so-called “visual dandruff” — newspapers, mail, laundry, knickknacks — that accumulates in a house that’s well lived in. Clutter eats up equity. If there’s a bookshelf, pack up two-thirds of those books and put them away and basically just arrange the rest in nice little displays.
This mantra also applies to furniture. A good rule of thumb is that a staged living room should have half of its furniture removed, to give a better sense of spaciousness and movement. What to do with it? You’re moving, so pull a storage pod in the driveway and pack it up.
And when you do rearrange, make sure you highlight the focal point of the room, such arranging chairs around a fireplace in an inviting, approachable scene, experts say.
Stream line the kitchen counters too. Keep the coffeepot, but put away the toaster and the toaster over. You don
It doesn’t take long for a prospective buyer to form an opinion about your house. Here’s how you can tilt the odds in your favor by making your home appeal to the widest clientele possible.
You dont have much time.
Prospective home buyers form an opinion about the home you’re selling in 15 seconds, by one estimate. And the clock starts ticking at the curb — even before the home buyers get in the house. So how do you tilt the playing field in your favor? Increasingly, it’s by staging your home.
In this market now, staging is desperately needed even more so, because it’s so competitive. In fact about one in four homes nationwide are now staged. So if you’re not doing it, you may be at a disadvantage.
There are techniques to pulling this off — some obvious and some not. Stay tuned for staging tip #1
A lot of folks run when they hear the mention of a Short Sale! But there are lot’s of programs available to help you stay in your home or get out from under your home. Check out this informative video from the folks at Certified Distressed Property Experts.
