Sunday, July 20, 2008

Staging Your Home for a Quicker Sale....

Staging a house for sale means going beyond just making it look tidy. Typical buyers make up their minds about your home 10 seconds after they step through your front door. Just as stagehands set the stage for a production, you can do the same for your home. It can be made to look cozy, colorful and inviting to make it stand out from the rest of the other houses on the market using things such as accessories, colorful chintz fabric on the tables, fresh bouquet of flowers in a vase, scented candles on the fireplace mantel, and the way that the furniture is set around an area rug. Potential buyers want instant coziness and comfort in the home they'll choose.

Here are some tips from professional home stagers (that you may find useful):

Pack away most of your family photos. Buyers need to imagine their possessions in the home.

Pack up the bulk of large, personal collections, so that buyers don't get so interested in looking at them that they forget to look at the house.

Remove excess furniture to make rooms more spacious. Clean and organize the closets. Store boxes in an out of the way location or rent a temporary storage unit so you can de-clutter every part of the house.

Remove area rugs if they expose nice hardwood floors.

Buy or borrow living houseplants. They look better than artificial ones.
Create a mood. Bake bread or cookies during showings, or place a fresh loaf of bread and/or fresh colorful fruit in a basket on the counter.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Remember -- LESS IS BETTER.

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