When you’re ready to list your house for sale, staging your home is one of the most essential tasks on your to-do list.
When you get ready for a job interview, a date, an important meeting, or a social gathering, you make sure you look your very best. The same should also be true with your house for sale. You’ve got to dress your house for success by staging your home.
A properly staged home increases the perceived value to potential buyers, which can also positively influence your sales price.
Your chance to influence house-hunters begins with curb appeal, when the buyer approaches your property — and then carries through each room of the house.
The goal is for buyers to feel the wow factor as their first impression, and then carry that impression throughout the tour, imagining themselves living in the space.
Here are some tips and tricks for staging your home.
Maintenance and Repairs
Before you move into decluttering, depersonalizing, cleaning, and accentuating your home and yard, you need to make sure everything is in good working order.
Buyers, appraisers, and home inspectors will check things like the condition of the roof, foundation, heating and air, electrical, plumbing, and more.
Only once you’re satisfied that your home’s major systems are functioning properly can you start working your way, room by room, through the house to prepare it for sale.
Declutter the Whole House One Room at a Time
Decluttering the house may feel like one of the most daunting parts of staging, but it’s beneficial for you and your home’s sale.
To declutter is to go through every closet, every drawer, and every nook and cranny of your property to eliminate anything you won’t need before moving to your next home.
In essence, you’ll decide what you must have with you until the sale is complete, and you’ll remove everything else.
Go through every stack of paperwork, filing what you need in a storage box and getting rid of the rest. Have a special storage case for photographs and keepsakes.
Thin out closet space by deciding which clothes and shoes you’ll keep and which items no longer fit you or your lifestyle.
The decluttering phase is a great opportunity to have a yard sale, sell things online, or donate to charity. It’s also the ideal time to start packing away your precious things for the next part of your journey.
Consider the furniture, too. The more furniture that’s in a house, the smaller, darker, and more stuffy that house feels. As with your other things, keep the necessary pieces of furniture, but put larger pieces like china cabinets or hutches into storage for the time being.
Depersonalize and Neutralize the Property
Depersonalizing the house is also difficult.
Here, you’ve got to remove your personal items like family photos, nick-knack collections, kids’ drawings from the refrigerator, your books and magazines, sports paraphernalia, and anything that makes a religious or political statement.
The goal in depersonalizing your home is to make it a neutral place, a space where buyers can feel free to daydream about how their belongings will fit once they move in.
You also want to avoid the risk of alienating a buyer by accidentally offending them with your personal beliefs, which may conflict with theirs.
This part is also difficult because, if you’re still living in the house, it begins to feel bare. But focus, instead, on how things will be once you move to your new place.
Neutralizing the home also means choosing a color palette that is soft, warm, and inviting. Bold colors or wallpaper prints may be off-putting to buyers with a more simplistic taste.
Take this opportunity to add a fresh coat of paint to your walls, if necessary. Freshly painted walls also give the feeling of clean. You’d be surprised at how a few cans of paint can add appeal and value to your house for sale.
Deep Clean Everything from Top to Bottom
The deep clean is something you can either do yourself or outsource to a cleaning company. The goal is to have your entire house spic-and-span from top to bottom. Clean sells.
A house that’s well-worn could appear dingy and have areas that may have evaded your attention – like ceiling fans, air vents, and baseboards.
With a fresh coat of neutral paint on the walls, you’re off to a great start, but the rest of the house has to look as fresh.
Bleach the sinks, tubs, and showers. Clean the windows and windowsills. Mop the floors.
And, you’ll need to keep it clean and tidy through the duration of the sale. This means having beds made, dishes cleared from the sink, no towels hanging over the shower, no full trash cans, and no visible dirty laundry. You never know when someone may spontaneously want to tour your home.
Don’t forget to clean under the sinks and check for leaks, water spots, or musty smells that could indicate plumbing problems. Buyers will look under sinks, and so will an appraiser and an inspector before the sale is complete.
You may also need to examine your carpets or flooring. With the rest of your house clean, your floors may stand out like a sore thumb. A simple shampoo may do the trick if your carpets are in good shape but dirty.
However, in some cases, it may be worth the investment to replace the flooring before showing the house. Otherwise, a buyer may start to ask for a better price so they can replace the floors themselves.
Add Accents to Your Environment
There are several additional tips that can not only increase a buyer’s perceived value of your home, but may also give a boost to your home’s value during the appraisal process.
An appraiser typically measures value in $500 increments, so even the smallest of upgrades can make a big difference in your bottom dollar.
For example, replacing light switch covers, electrical socket covers, locks, doorknobs, door screens, and window screens can all make a house look well maintained.
Other ways you can influence the way a buyer perceives your space is to add refreshing elements like a bowl of fruit on the table, live plants, and other indications that the home is nurturing – a place where life flourishes.
Add a spa-like feel to the bathrooms by adding crisp, white towels, white candles, and plants.
Mastering Curb Appeal
Once the inside of your home is ready to show, it’s time to dress the exterior.
Start with the yards. Make sure they’re free of weeds, mowed if there’s a lawn, that any hedges or bushes are trimmed, and that flowers and plants look healthy. This is also an ideal time to store patio furniture, and put away any outside toys.
Take a look at the exterior of the structure. If necessary, give the house a good power-wash. Make sure there’s no chipped paint that may make the house look dilapidated.
And, if you’ve already replaced window screens, you’re a step-ahead by adding a new element to the exterior of your property.
Work with Your Real Estate Agent
Your real estate agent is a wealth of information when it comes to properly stage your home for sale.
Your agent can tour your home and give you specific, precise suggestions on ways you can dress your house for success.
Talk with your real estate agent about staging your home so it will sell quickly and for the most money.
JJK Home Network is the best source of information about the local community and real estate topics. Give JJK Home Network a call at 314-258-1296 or 618-691-0547 to learn more about local areas, discuss selling a house, or tour available homes for sale.