Easy Tips for Staging your Own Home
When selling your home, it is imperative to make sure it looks its best.
This is particularly important when selling in a buyer's market, when
there is a large inventory of homes available for sale and buyers have
more selection. Certainly, most sellers do not want to begin
redecorating their home when they are trying to sell; however, most
homes can do with at least a little bit of TLC. Staging your home can
help it to look as good as possible and bring out the best features of
your home. Professional staging can be an expensive undertaking;
although, the results are certainly worth it based on the statistics.
Professional staging can not only help your home to sell for more money
but also in a shorter period of time. If you simply cannot afford to
have your home professionally staged, there are some home staging tips you can
apply on your own to give it that special touch.
First, consider giving your home a fresh coat of paint. The most common
mistake that many sellers make is using colors that are too dark or are
of too personal a choice. Instead, choose colors that are lighter and
neutral in tone. Keep in mind that lighter colors will also help a
smaller room to look bigger. The cost for giving your home a fresh coat
of paint is relatively inexpensive if you handle the job on your own;
between $12 and $50 per gallon of paint and up to about $50 for painting
supplies such as drop cloths, brushes and primer. For $100 or less you
can give a room in your home an entirely new look.
If you have good quality wood floors, do not hesitate to highlight them,
but make sure they are cleaned and polished so they will look their
best. Remove heavy drapes and replace them with drapes that are light
and colorful to let in plenty of natural light.
Spend some time putting away your personal items. This is a good way to
get a head start on your packing but will also help to make your home
more attractive to buyers. Most buyers want to be able to visualize
themselves living in a home they are considering buying and that can be
difficult to do when your personal items and knickknacks still inhabit
every surface. This is actually one of the easiest and least expensive
things you can do to sell your home quickly. The idea is to make your
home show like a model home. Focus on removing items from the
countertops in the bathrooms and the kitchen. For the price of a storage
unit, which is usually around $50 per month, you can take a huge step
toward making your home more appealing.
It is also a good idea to re-arrange the rooms in your home to make them
more appealing to prospective buyers as well. Be sure that each room in
your home has a useful and distinct purpose. To gain ideas, consider
touring model homes to see how they are furnished.
Remember that no one wants to buy a home that is dirty and smelly.
Therefore, make sure that your home shines from top to bottom and has a
clean, fresh smell. Toward that end, make sure you clean and deodorize
your home before each and every showing. If you cannot afford new
carpet, at least pay to have someone come in and steam clean the
carpets. When buyers tour a home that is smelly or seems unkempt they
naturally wonder what else is wrong with it and often will not see any
of the home's wonderful features. The money to have your home
professionally cleaned if you cannot get to it on your own is well worth
it. Expect to pay about $100 to have an average 2,500 square foot home
cleaned.
Finally, make sure you do not overlook the curb appeal of your home. Be
sure the lawn is neatly trimmed and the driveway and sidewalks are free
of debris and clutter. The home should be easily visible from the
street. The outside of the home is just as important as the inside and
sometimes even more so as the curb appeal, or lack of it, can cause a
prospective buyer to keep on driving and prevent them from stopping to
look inside at all of the home's wonderful features.
Spending some time staging your home can be well worth it when you are
looking to sell your home quickly and especially when you are forced to
sell in a buyer's market.
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