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Staging Your Home To Sell
 

What is Staging?

When you decide to place your home on the market it becomes a product just like an item on the shelf in your local department store or a car at a local dealership. Just as those products have their individual features, benefits, pluses, and minuses that wrap them in competition, so does your home. To contend with the competition in the housing marketplace, your home must be priced right and look better than the other products on the shelf of the housing market. Staging is the process of preparing a home to be on the housing market shelf.

Why is Staging Important?

Staging is important for attracting potential buyers and enticing them to make an offer on your home. If a buyer cannot separate the existing persona of a home to envision their own personality splashing paint colors on the walls and filling rooms with furniture, it could detriment the potential of an offer being made.

What are the Benefits of Staging?

Staging is a system that has been proven to help homes sell faster and for greater value. When a home is staged it presents itself to potential buyers as a world of possibilities - they can better envision their lives in the space. It also gives your real estate agent more confidence in showing your home to potential buyers because they know that your home is going to present as one of the top products on the housing market shelf.

What is an Accredited Staging Professional?

An accredited staging professional (ASP) is a professional who has studied and learned the technique of staging a home to sell and is dedicated to the principles and practices of preparing your property for the housing market shelf.

The Golden Rule of Staging

When you decide to sell your home you have decided to sell a product - your house. Think of it this way - if home is where you hang your hat and you decide to move on to a different hanger, your house is no longer your home but needs to look like a potential home for others - a place where they can hang their hat. The rule - your home is not for sale, but your house is!

General Staging Tips
  • Walk through your house and view every room with the eyes of a buyer. What would you want to see?
  • Carpets should be professionally cleaned.
  • Check the lights! All lights should be working properly and burning bright. Look out for dark corners and hallways and brighten up the light in those areas.
  • Touch up the paint on the walls and patch any cracks and old nail holes.
  • Open the curtains to let in the lights and the view.
  • Keep pillows at a 0 - 2 maximum on couches, removing all afghans and blankets that add a personal "someone lives here" feeling.
  • Pack and store valuable items.
  • Spruce up your house plants and make sure they are not cluttering up the openness of a room.
  • Sweep the fireplace and clear off the mantel keeping only necessary items there.
  • Contemplate moving furniture and/or storing large extra pieces that make a room feel smaller.
  • Pack up your collections and memorabilia - you don't want a focal point to be about your hobbies.
  • Reduce the number of books on bookshelves
  • Reduce the number of family pictures
  • Reduce the number of wall hangings
  • Play soft music at showings - easy listening or light jazz.
  • Watch out for odors! Make sure rooms are well ventilated and free of cooking, smoking, dog, cat, baby, laundry, and mildew odors that can put off buyers.
  • Wash the windows and replace windows with broken seals.
  • Repair any and all broken items in the house.
  • Pack up the little trinkets and items that can appear to clutter a room or space.
  • Consider baking cookies and brewing coffee before an open house or brokers open - the enticing aromas of baking and coffee with make your house smell homey and cozy.

Helpful Staging Products
  • DAP patch stick (home depot) for patching nail holes
  • Super sliders (Wal-Mart/linens & things) to aid with moving furniture
  • Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to remove marks on walls
  • Windex Window Wipes to clean windows, appliances, and windows
  • Clorox Disinfecting Wipes to clean multiple surfaces
  • Febreeze fabric refresher (in allergen reducer type) to freshen furniture and reduce irritants for visitors who may have allergies
  • Febreeze Air Effects (in fresh clean scent) to remove odor in the air in bathrooms
  • Oust Air Sanitizer (in fresh clean scent) to remove odor in the air caused by bacteria particularly in basements
  • Glade plug-ins in a clean fresh scent (1 per floor, same smell throughout the house) to make home smell clean and fresh throughout
  • Pledge Grab it! Dusting cloths for quick and effective daily dusting of furniture and surfaces
 
 
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