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Staging Your Home

Staging your home is an important part of selling your home for the best price possible. This is because buyers often can’t picture themselves living in a home without certain furnishings. Presenting your home in its best light will be in your best interest, so even if you are on a tight budget, spending some time and money staging your home properly can make a difference between selling your home or having it sit on the market for too long.

Staging your home doesn’t have to be expensive. The key is to make the home look nice and let the buyer picture themselves living in the space. Here are some tips for staging your home, and of course, our Agents can give you specific tips when they have an opportunity to tour your home before listing it for sale.

  1. Don’t sell your home vacant. It should appear lived in, even if it’s not. If it truly is vacant, buy, borrow or rent inexpensive furniture to provide a lived-in look for the home. Your goal is show buyers what the space looks like when it’s lived in so they can picture the rooms with their belongings.
  2. Remove clutter. This is by far the most important part of staging your home for a quick sale. A cluttered home does not look spacious, and space is a big part of what buyers are purchasing is space.
  3. Remove overcrowded furnishings. Even if all clutter is cleaned up, your home may not look spacious if you have too much furniture in the room. Remove all but the essentials, and make the essentials look good. This means if you have three couches in a game room, take two out and put them in storage.

If you have six or eight chairs around a large dinner table, consider getting a smaller dinner table with only four chairs and set the table with dinnerware before a showing.

4. Light a scented candle or bake cookies prior to a showing. You want to make an impression on prospective buyers, and this means appealing to as many senses as possible. The sense of smell has been shown to help a buyer who has been looking at homes all day to remember your home at the end of the day.

5. Don’t be present for showings. Give a buyer plenty of time and space to soak in your home and picture themselves in the space. They can’t do that with you present. They will feel rushed and likely won’t be able to remember the specifics of your home at the end of the day.

For more specific home staging advice on how to sell your home quickly in any market, please contact us to assist you in marketing your home!