5 Tips for Staging Your Home to Sell

Selling your home can be an emotional experience. It is always challenging because you likely have sentimental feelings about the home, making it worth more to you than it might be to potential buyers. Today, we have 5 tips for you to ensure that your home can be just as appealing to potential buyers touring your home but in a different way. The solution lies in understanding what buyers want to see and, probably more importantly what they do not want to see.

1. De-Clutter and Clean: Cleaning your home to make it presentable is probably one of the first things you automatically think of. However, something that you might not realize is that even if a house is clean, clutter can make buyers feel uncomfortable. Since you are already planning on moving, remove as much as possible from the home. That means figures on shelves and even extra furniture pieces. Allow the buyers to imagine themselves in the house. It is hard for them to do that with too much of your things in it. If your new home is not ready, try using a storage facility.
2. Make Small Changes for Wider Appeal: Even though you are selling your home, consider making a few changes that will ensure a wider appeal. Making smart changes might cost extra, but they will increase your chances of selling the house. In many cases, you can add the cost for the change or improvement to the selling price. If you have an odd color paint in a room or old wall paper, changing it to a neutral color. If you have a room or a section that is dark, add lighting that showcases the space.
3. Fix Problems: Beyond eye sores, we are talking about fixing problem areas that can immediately turn off buyers. If your rug is old, have it professionally cleaned or put an area rug over it if there are stains that cannot come up and you don’t intend on replacing the rug entirely. Other problem areas you might consider fixing before showing your home include holes in walls, chipped furniture, or water damage. Is your furniture old and unappealing? If you are planning to buy something new for your new home, why not use that for staging your home when selling it? You can even give the option of the new home owner buying that furniture to cover your costs or just say it is not included and take it with you.
4. Compare with Other Homes for Sale in Your Area: Basically, you need to check out the competition. Realtors have always been able to “pull comps” and see what other properties in your area that are similar to yours have recently sold for. However, you couldn’t always see what the inside looked like or what upgrades were or were not made. The internet makes it possible to see homes quite quickly and easily. When you see what the competition looks like, you can make smart decisions about upgrades and changes because you know what you are up against and what buyers are comparing your home to.
5. Get Second Opinions: It is important to recognize that when it comes to your home, it has sentimental value to you and that makes you blind to certain things. Ask your realtor, an interior designer, or objective friends and families to help you honestly evaluate your home. Being objective will help your home sell and help you get the most out of it.

Summary
These 5 tips can really help you sell your home. If you are still at a lost, you can always hire professional stagers that prepare homes for sale for a living, but if you follow these tips, you probably won’t have to do that. One of the most important things to remember is that when selling your home, you have to take your emotion and sentimental feeling out of it and set them aside for the sake of selling the home. When you do that along with cleaning and de-cluttering, aim for a wider appeal with the design elements, and fix problem areas, it increases your chances to sell your home for more money in a faster time period. Once you check the boxes on those three things, you should check out the competition and get a professional or objective opinion about your home.