Selling Your Home Is All About Grabbing The Attention Of Home Buyers.
How can you grab the attention of a home Buyer, you ask? There are a number of ways to draw a Buyer in, for them to want to see more, to want to know more, to want to consider your home, as being perfect for them and/or their family. Here are some tips and advice from a few professionals for Sellers to set the stage for the home they’re trying to sell.
Staging a home is about how you present your home to Buyers. It’s just one part of the home selling package in getting a home sold. It’s not an option, it’s an important requirement, since you want to compete and win a Buyer over from a nearby competing home
Staging a home can mean hiring a professional depending upon your individual needs and budget or it can mean taking the advice of a skilled Real Estate Agent who can advise you how to set your home up and set the stage to draw Buyers in. If you’re fortunate enough to find a Real Estate Agent who also has such knowledge, you’ll be that much better off in working towards getting your home sold.
“By properly showcasing and preparing your home for sale, you are giving your buyers the vision and the emotional connection needed to motivate them to buy. If they cannot feel or see themselves living in your home, they’re off to the next showing.” –
Red Barrinuevo | Property Stylist, Interior Decorator
1. Allow Buyers To Imagine Themselves Living In Your Home.
Below are easy ways to do just that. Put yourself in the Buyer’s shoes and imagine walking into a home and visualizing you and/or your family living there. It’s pretty easy to do when you’re so excited about buying a home. 81% of Buyers are able to visualize a home as their future home when it has been staged*.
Depersonalize: Many Buyers don’t have the ability to look through your personal stuff to picture their family living there. Why not make it easy for them. The more you have to make them work, the harder it will be to sell your home.
“The less your home displays your own personal signature when selling, the greater the chance that buyers will have the ability to emotionally connect and envision themselves living there. It is in this magical moment that the offer comes in.” –
Lorrie White (a.k.a. The Secret Weapon)
Make it Light and Bright: It’s incredible what light and brightness can do to one’s mood. Just search the internet to discover the effect of light on one’s mood. It’s been known to lift the spirits of depressed and melancholy individuals. A gloomy dark interior can be a real downer! With this in mind, it only makes sense to open up your blinds & curtains to reveal the sunshine and turn on all the lights in your home when a Buyer’s showing is scheduled. Replace those burnt out, missing light bulbs that you’ve been meaning replace.
Shiny Clean: Shiny clean will bring a smile to any Buyer’s face, even if the Buyers themselves are not such neat & clean people. Nobody likes to discover another’s dirt and grime. If it’s there, they’ll offer you less money for your home: a lot less than the cost to clean it up. Pretty simple.
Organize: Don’t let your home be overwhelmed with clutter, put your stuff where it goes or clear it out. Create order, whether visible or tucked away inside cupboards, cabinets and closets. Buyers do look inside, so show them that your home offers just the right amount of storage which is very important to buyers! If you’re not usually an organized person, you’d best become one or hire someone to organize for you. You get one shot with a buyer.
“Homes that are properly staged before listing stand a better chance of appealing to potential buyers and thus selling faster, since staging helps buyers imagine “themselves” living there. Spending a little time and money to ensure that their house is viewed as “move in ready” will provide an excellent ROI (or return on investment) to the sellers.” – Maureen Bray
2. Open Up Pathways
Allow buyers to meander effortlessly through your home. Buyer’s should be able to walk from one room of your home to another without worrying about tripping or running into a piece of furniture or fixture. Rearrange the furniture to open up a pathway in the home. Road blocks in a home are uninviting for a home Buyer.
3. Accentuate Positively
Special Features: Perk up your home. If your home has any special features, accentuate them. Accentuate the positive. We’re always told to accentuate our own personal positive features and the same holds true with our homes. Focal points in our homes are the positive features of our home. When we accentuate the focal points, it enables the home Buyer to imagine how they’ll likely benefit from the focal point or enjoy it. For example, I recall another home Seller that had a beautiful, brick fireplace with a lovely wood mantel that this home Seller really didn’t use and certainly didn’t accentuate, so it appeared as if it was just tossed aside having little or no value. I recommended that we move some furniture around to have the fireplace “set up on a pedestal” so to speak. It was as if the room was now smiling with the fireplace being framed as a beautiful feature in their room. The home Sellers actually, said, “… wow, isn’t that lovely….look at our fireplace…”. The fireplace had a brand new light focused on it. Fireplaces can be beautiful focal points of a home and it’s best to let the Buyer see the focal point in it’s optimum setting; setup and highlighted ready to welcome the new Buyer.
Beautiful Windows: What about those beautiful windows that you have in your home – are you blocking them or accentuating them? Not only do you not want to block them, but you want to make sure your home’s windows are sparkling clean.
My favorite for cleaning windows is to clean with a bit of vinegar in a bucket of warm water. You take a rag wet with the mixture of vinegar and water and then you dry it off with newspapers. Now you’ll have some beautiful sparkling clean windows for home Buyers to admire, which can only accentuate the positive of your home’s features. So go and clean those windows!
Beautiful things: You can also accentuate a home for sale with a fresh, neutral hued coat of paint on walls and trim. Put out fresh linens, new bedding, new towels, new throw pillows, fresh flowers. The list goes on and on of what can perk up a home.
“The reason you want to stage your home is so Buyers can see the possibilities and “livability” of your property. Removing any distractions or detractions, and enhancing your home’s assets will go a long way in putting your home on a Buyer’s short list of must-see homes and in improving its perceived value.”
In Summary: Making your home memorable is the goal of any home staging effort or professional. When selling a home, make your home stand out from the other homes for sale, this gets you one step closer towards selling it.
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