Moving is a very stressful experience, and doubly so if you're putting your home on the market. Let's face it: with all the headaches you'll have when you move, the quicker you can get rid of the home sale headache, the better. Of course, at the same time you'd like to maximize what you sell it for, because that's more money in your pocket.
Sometimes it seems like homes sell almost before you can get them listed, while others appear to languish due to shifts in the economy which negatively impact buyer interest and enthusiasm. Fortunately, there are ways that you can increase the likelihood of your home selling quickly even if the market isn’t at its best. One of these options is to improve your home staging so that buyers will be see the potential of your property and want to make it their own.
Some people view home staging as simply making sure that everything is neat, clean, and orderly so that buyers can see the home at its best. While this is important, it’s not the only thing that you can do to improve the appeal of your home. The trick is to make buyers see how good your home would look if it were theirs, and here are a few unexpected ways that you can make your home look better that way to prospective buyers.
Bigger and Brighter
When staging your home, you want to make sure that you not only present its best qualities but also reduce the impact of some of its less-great aspects. Take your bathrooms for instance. If one or more of the bathrooms in your home seem small, try putting a larger bathroom mirror in there to make the whole room seem bigger. Also, hang it slightly lower if possible so that you don’t have a large mirrored surface looming over visitors’ heads; ideally, the center of the mirror should be slightly below eye level for the average person using it.
Another tip that can work in both bathrooms and any room that seems a bit too dark is to lighten up the walls to improve the overall brightness of the room. This can be as simple as replacing dark colored curtains with light white ones or adding white hand towels and decorative items to add light areas to the room. If you feel like taking in a larger project, add a couple of coats of paint in a light color that goes well with existing decorations, such as a light blue or soft light green. Lighter, brighter rooms seem larger.
Upscale and Comfortable
Tweaking your furniture and decorations is another way that you can improve your home staging and make your home a must-buy. If you wish that you had some more upscale furniture to show off, talk to developers that have model homes available in planned communities around where you live. Model homes are frequently staged by professionals who know how best to stage to encourage sales, and because much of that furniture is used solely for staging, and you can buy excess pieces relatively cheaply because they’re considered used. Staging companies in your area may also have furniture available for rent or purchase under similar terms. The best part is, if you buy the furniture for your staging then you may be able to recoup some of your money by selling the furniture along with the house.
While you want buyers to like the way that your home looks, it’s also important that they think it looks comfortable and ready for them to move in. Add fluffy comforters and knit throws to beds, drape a soft blanket along the back of the couch, and add other little touches to make it look like the house is just waiting for someone to make it theirs. Just be sure that you remove photos and other personal items from the home before the staging since you want potential buyers to picture it as their house and not yours.
Knock Out Those Repairs
One last thing that you can do to improve your staging is to go ahead and finish some of the little repairs around the house that you never quite got around to doing. Patch holes in the walls if they're too easily visible, for example, and paint over any stains on the walls that can't be cleaned.
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