Selling Tips - Appeal to Buyers, Level Expert
10 Staging Tips To Get Your Home Sold
Ready to sell your Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake home? Here are a few staging tips to get your home prepared for the market. When listing a home that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, you want to make sure it's presented in the best light. You wouldn't buy a $20,000 dollar car if it was filled from top to bottom in someone's personal content and trash. This is the same mindset you need to carry into selling your home that will be worth well over a $100,000. Check out the suggestions and tips below. I'm happy to provide even more ideas for your home and help you execute these tasks!
1. SAY BYE TO CLUTTER
The best thing you can do for your home for sale is to get rid of all of your clutter! Make a rule for your home that for every new piece that comes in, one must go. One of the biggest factors to a cluttered home is too much furniture. Generally, in a professional staging, half the home owner's furniture is removed to make the house look much bigger. Look around your house and see what you can pack away. It'll be worth the investment to get a storage unit for a couple of months to store away a lot of your furnishings and goods.
Bedrooms are notorious for clutter... Make your life easy by packing and storing clothing and outerwear that you won't be sporting in the current season. Make sure to pack these items per season so that they're easily retrievable from storage. My listings are under contract in an average of 65 days. From contract to closing, it's safe to say you'll need about 6 weeks. So the entire process will take about 107 days. Plan for this when decluttering.
2. FURNITURE GROUPINGS
It's largely misconceived that furniture pushed directly up against walls make a room look bigger, but this is far from true. Instead, you'll want to float your furniture away from the walls. Be sure the furnishings are placed to make the traffic flow in a room obvious. This will make the room more user-friendly and will make it look larger.
Position your sofas and chairs into cozy conversational groupings, like so ⬆️
3. TRANSFORM ROOMS
If you have a room that has only served to collect boxes or other junk, it's important to purpose the room to something that is functional. You can make it into an extra bedroom, a small cozy nook/reading room, etc. If it's in the basement, hide the boxes and turn it into a gaming room or family area.
Add a home office, a music room, well organized kids room, an art studio, a library. Create a space your buyers will fall in love with!
4. HOME LIGHTING
Great lighting is the trick to making a staged home look warm and welcome. Most homes are improperly lit, which makes rooms look dark and dreary. There is a quick fix to this issue. Add three different types of lighting to each room: ambient (general overhead), task (under cabinets or pendants), and accent lighting (table lamps and wall accents).
Simple Solution:
Increase the wattage in your fixtures and lamps, aiming for about 100 watts per 50 square feet.
5. GO NEUTRAL
The simple trick to toning down dated finishings in any space is a little bit of fresh paint. You don't want to go stark white, but look into neutral grey and beige colors. Beige colors can also consist of warm honey like colors, soft blues and greens, and a variety of undertones that add a little life to a general neutral color. If you do want to use bold colors, be sure to only keep it on accent walls to help enhance structural features.
When preparing to sell your home, avoid "taste specific" design choices. When a potential buyer tours your property, they need to see past you and picture themselves in the space. Keeping a neutral color scheme is a great way to achieve this.
6. MAKE IT LOOK BIGGER
If you want to make a room bigger than it is, paint the room the same color as an adjacent room. For small kitchens and dining rooms, a seamless look will make the space feel like one, open it up, and make it seem much larger. Using drapes can also add an emphasis to the room's size.
Seamless transitions from room to room give the feel of an open, larger space
7. USE YOUR GARDEN
Staged homes have an emphasis in fresh flowers and pricey floral arrangements. If you don't have the money to go all out on florals, you can get this same effect by raiding your garden space. You can DIY beautiful pieces with fern fronds, magnolia clippings, and more. Use the spring and summer months to find cheerful flowers and use them in your arrangements.
In fall and winter months, experiment with dry or Faux flowers to add color and more warmth to your spaces
8. GET A FACELIFT
So you can't afford new cabinets? What about getting new doors and drawer fronts? Then paint everything to match and add new hardware to them. Instead of replacing the entire dishwasher, you may be able to get a new front panel, go for stainless steel if you can pull it off. Check with the manufacturer to see if replacements are available for your model.
9.MAKE NECESSARY REPAIRS
Unfinished home projects can really scare off potential home buyers, so you'll want to be sure to make required repairs. Missing floorboards and large cracks in the sidewalk on the way to your door tend to be a red flag. Holes in walls and scratched up door frames can really look unattractive. These repairs cost you less to fix than buyers might deduct from the asking price.
Blatant issues in need of attention must be addressed prior to listing your home. Not only will they turn buyer's off visually, they're likely to be noted in a home inspection and can be problematic on the road to settlement.
10. CLEAN YOUR HOME
Aside from de-cluttering, the most important step to staging your home is to clean it. A dirty house is a quick turn-off for potential buyers. Most homes, especially with children and pets, and smokers, have a smell that may go undetected to home owners, but are quickly picked up by strangers. Be sure to have your home professionally cleaned prior to staging to appeal to all buyers that your home is nice and fresh.
