Set the stage for your own home sale success story
There is a new wave of home shows on television these days and the focus is on getting a house seen and sold quickly and for the best price. These shows feature all the elements of a good plot; drama, comedy, suspense, bad guys, victims, good guys, and it always seems like a happy ending.
The drama unfolds with the scene set when the sellers, our victims, are obviously in desperate need of a quick house renovation to sell the place. The bad guys, real estate agent, or potential buyers walk through the willing victim’s home and offer candid, sometimes crude, comments about how the house looks. The victims usually sit like rabbits in a hole in a neighbor’s house and watch on TV how the scene unfolds and what these bad guys have to say about their place.
Oh, they need help! Here they come to save the day, the helpful crew, our heroes; set designers, designers, painters, carpenters, cameramen and, of course, our host, at the service of our vendors. They will rescue our victims and the sale of their house by putting it up for sale in less than 2 days and for less than the cost of a day at Disney World. Everyone is happy and the show, I mean the sale, is a success!
How can you, as a home seller, create this same experience without America watching, but reach your target audience: the buyers in your market? I’ll tell you how, STAGE your own property!
Staging is a marketing tool that highlights the best features of your home while minimizing the negatives. Staging is not about your personal style or taste.
Keep in mind that in most of these shows, the designer will “neutralize” the space and remove the often quirky, cluttered, or outdated style of the owners in question. It is about selling the space, the house itself, not the content. Buyers want to see themselves in this house, not in your house.
Treating your home like a commodity for sale on the open market is the first step in separating yourself from your home, it is now a commodity. It gets easier after that.
Here are some simple tips to get you started on your path to your own successful sale;
1. Declutter, declutter and deep clean your place. All small trinkets, children’s artwork, family photos, and rooster collections need to be bagged up and moved into storage. Save them for your next place. Remove items that are not permanently attached to countertops in bathrooms and kitchens, especially. You have to pack anyway, start early! Get the house cleaner than ever, including your grout, wall plates, door frames, carpet, and windows.
2. Neutralize vibrant wall colors and remove wallpaper, even if it’s a “designer” color, a faux finish that was popular 5 years ago or took 18 hours to dry. Buyers want a home that is move-in ready, and despite how you feel about the colors you love, buyers probably won’t and will see it as a job to be done, not move-in ready. You can’t go wrong with a warm beige or taupe or an antique white. A clean and fresh palette says a lot.
3. Take out unnecessary furniture and rugs for storage. Keep only the pieces necessary to show the location and scale of the room. If your furniture is really shabby, consider buying some cheap new pieces or slipcovers, you’ll be taking them with you to your next spot, so why not spend a little? Area rugs tend to create a disruption in the flow, especially if they are small and scattered throughout the house, including bathrooms. An anchor rug in the right proportion per room is fine if it’s not too busy. Buyers buy square footage, floor space, flooring, architectural details, and countertops, not your furniture. Show them what they get by highlighting the house, not their stuff.
4. Find the focal point of the room and highlight it, don’t make it compete with something else. Maybe it’s the fireplace or the beautiful view, sell the focal point, don’t hide it! Large TV units are notorious for overshadowing the focal point of many rooms, if you can move or store them while you sell them, you’re way ahead of the game.
5. Create curb appeal to both the front and rear of your property. Freshly cut and bordered patios, mulched flower beds and seasonal flowers welcome visitors to a home that says, “I’ve been well cared for.” Removing all the excess art and lawn equipment invites the buyer in and allows the imagination to flow. Keep hoses tight, pool toys stowed away, and barbecue grills to a minimum and out of sight, especially if they’ve seen better days.
By following these steps before listing and showing your home, you have improved one of the most important factors in the successful sale of your home, the condition.
You as the owner are the only one who can control that. So whether you invite an HGTV crew, a professional home stager, or a neighbor to help out, you’ve chosen to make your home the star of the real estate show in your local market, one that you’ve produced yourself and that will be It will definitely have a happy ending.