Stage Your Home
What should stay, and what should you store?
As you sell your home and look into buying a new one, the procedure can get a little tricky. Here are some helpful tips to assist you through your move and make life a lot easier.
The exterior of Your Home
First and foremost, the outside of your home (known as curb appeal) is one of the most important things the buyer considers. When they pull into your driveway, what’s their first impression? Make sure the yard and all walkways are cleared of any debris, lawn equipment like hoses and mowers and toys.
Next, you want to ensure that lighting is adequate. Replace old or burnt-out bulbs in your entryways, outside soffits and garage. You can even add some solar lighting to the driveway.
Lastly, make sure your mailbox and house numbers are clean and readable. You want those potential buyers to find your home easily. You can’t sell it if they can’t find it!
The Interior of Your Home
Now that the outside of your home is looking totally amazing, it’s time for the inside. To start, you’ll want to go through all the rooms and clear away any clutter or personal items that have accumulated. Clear out personal family photos, including kids’ artwork on the fridge and on the walls. Remember, you don’t know who the potential buyers will be, you don’t know their style, and you don’t know what might turn them away. Keep in mind that you want potential buyers to be able to envision this as their home, not yours.
A good rule of thumb, if you have not used the items in your home in 3 months, it is best to put them in storage until you find your new home. If the items you store in your home have gone more than a year untouched, it is best to donate or sell them. And if some items just hit too close to home, and you can’t give them up, just move them into your storage unit for safekeeping! By the time you finish clearing out, you will actually want about 90% of your home packed up for storage, donated or sold. The interior is most important when you stage your home.
Time to Organize
Now that all the clutter is cleared out of your home, it’s time to rearrange and organize what’s left. Take a look at the furniture. We all have a tendency to accumulate this, too. Some furniture is not necessary to keep in your home during the selling process. It’s best to move those pieces to your storage unit. Some furniture may be hard to store, but in the long run, it will drive more value into your home. A common misconception is that furniture has to be up against walls. Not true! You want to float the furniture away from them, creating usable space all around. Keep in mind that every cleared square foot is added real estate in the buyers’ eyes. This all helps give the potential buyers the ability to see the entire home for what it is.
Another biggie to increase the value of your home is making sure everything is cleaned and sanitized. Perhaps someone walks in and gets hit in the face by odd and disgusting smells; they will have a tendency not to pay much attention to anything else the house has to offer. Create a welcoming environment by baking cookies right before a showing or have a simmer pot sitting on the stove. And, replace all those plugin air fresheners with something mild and soothing – stay away from heavy floral and musty scents, as they give the impression you are trying to cover something up. Choose something like vanilla or lilac. Don’t have time to clean and sanitize your home? Invest in professionals. Trust us, this is money well spent!
A key factor most people forget is lighting. Utilizing lighting properly really adds to the appeal of the home and, again, gives it the desired “homey” feeling. Get rid of those big bulky drapes and trade them in for something that is more light and airy such as blinds or transparent curtains. Let the outside light into your home, don’t block it out. When choosing curtains or blinds; use something with a subtle vertical pattern. This will make the windows and overall living space appear much taller and will create a more open environment. Install dimmers where you can. With these, you can adjust the lighting to match the time of day so certain spaces won’t appear too bright or too dark.
Make sure you use neutral color palates on your walls. This makes everything appear clean and fresh. Remember, simple is better! You don’t want a buyer walking into a Barbie pink room and having that be the reason you can’t sell. The biggest concern, you want to avoid, is having your buyer think, “Well this is going to have to be redone.” This just gives them more reasons to negotiate the price down. You want them to be able to envision living in your home. If you invest a little time and money into the appearance, you will see the return.
Using Storage
Using your home for storage when you are trying to sell it is a bad idea. You don’t want a potential buyer to see a bunch of “junk” filling every nook and cranny. It just gives a terrible impression. If you don’t currently have a storage unit, now is the time to get one! Use it for any clutter that is not a necessity, things you don’t want to part with, personal belongings that may distract buyers and furniture pieces that are used for space hiders. Basically anything you can live without on a daily basis is what needs to go into storage.
If you still need more assistance on the whole selling and staging process, contact us to speak with one of our helpful property managers. And, if you know what you need to do, and you are ready to start using storage right away and get your home listed.
