How To Stage Your Home To Sell

A very important step in the process of selling your house is ‘staging’ your home in order to attract as many potential buyers as possible. If it is within your budget, you can hire a professional staging company to take care of this detail for you.

If you’re working with a smaller budget, however, staging your home is something that you can do yourself with a little effort and minimal investment. The following tips and suggestions will give you impressive results that will wow everyone who passes through your home.

Complete Any Repairs

Take the time now to do any small projects that you’ve been meaning to get around to, like replacing a cracked window or putting a sliding door back on its hinges. By doing all repairs first, you’ll be able to clean up after yourself in the next step.

Make It Shine

Before you can begin setting up any staging materials, you must give your entire home a thorough cleaning. Once again, this segment of home preparation is something that you can hire a professional for, and it’s usually not too expensive for a one-time deep cleaning session. Otherwise, you’ll need to do it on your own, or by enlisting some friends or family members to pitch in. Be sure that everything shines – including windows, mirrors, televisions, and bookshelves. You shouldn’t be able to run your finger along any dusty surface.

Paint Outdated Tile or Cabinetry

We all know that today’s buyers show disdain at anything that makes a home look ‘dated.’ Rather than investing thousands to upgrade outdated tile in a bathroom, you can give it a quick coat of high-adhesion primer followed by ceramic epoxy paint. Consider painting dated or dingy kitchen and bathroom cabinets a light color (white is very popular currently). Updating all of your kitchen and bathroom hardware (drawer pulls, cabinet handles and possibly sink and bathtub fixtures) can really bring a room into present day.

Use Pops of Color

If you have it in the budget, paint all of your home’s walls a very light and neutral color. This makes everything feel larger and more open and gives buyers a feeling of newness. They’ll also enjoy pops of bright colors in the form of throw pillows, lamps, artwork and small decorative items like candles. Think reds, oranges and bright blues.

Go Green

In addition to adding color throughout the home, show buyers a touch of nature inside the home. A multitude of today’s buyers are very in touch with nature and are more concerned about the environment than ever before. Bring the outside in by placing some pine cones, bamboo, or twigs in a large glass vase. Find ways to re-purpose or recycle old items like using an old trunk as the focal point of a sitting area. Doing so not only shows the buyers that you’re environmentally friendly, but it brings character to your home as well.

Be sure that your home is as clutter-free as you can manage. Any clutter will detract from the impressive staging and prep work you’ve done. Buyers are always looking for homes with ample storage space, so be sure that your closets and storage areas are as clean and neat as possible. This will make all of your storage areas appear larger, which will have buyers thinking about how great their own items would look inside.