Home staging can be vital to ensuring a quick sale of your home, often for higher than your asking price. On average homes that have been staged stay on the market 40% less time than homes that are not staged.
If you are going to be showing your home while you are still living in it, staging is vital to getting the most money possible. Basically, staging involves eliminating clutter, arranging furniture to show the best features of the space, neutralizing any obnoxious or outdated features, and adding a few simple touches to appeal to buyers' senses. Below are some ideas to help you stage your home:
One of the key concepts of staging is that when you are selling your home you are selling square footage. The more clutter or unnecessary furniture you have in your home, the smaller it will look. Buyers can be easily distracted by the objects in a room and neglect to even notice the room itself. By removing everything but a few asthetically pleasing basics you lower the chance of distracting someone with your own personal taste and encourage them to instead notice things like the architecture of a room, the square footage, or even something as simple as a great view out of one of the windows.
Many sellers have a hard time putting away their personal belongings while they are still living in the home. It is important to remember that even though you may love your nick-nacks and collectibles, they are not going to fit with the taste of every buyer. You are trying to appeal to as wide a market as possible, so packing up your collection of ceramic clowns or rare teapots (you get the idea) will truly be in your best interest. Best of all, by packing up your "stuff" you will be that much closer to being ready to move when you do get an offer on your home.
Along with personal collections, many homeowners have way too much furniture crammed into their rooms. While it may be practical for while you are living in the home, when you are trying to sell your house it is a good idea to put some of your furniture in storage. Remember, the more floor that shows in a room the larger it will look, so consider storing things like extra chairs, dressers, armoires, lamps, desks, bookcases, etc.
When you are done you should be left with a few basic pieces of funiture, and maybe a few select pieces of artwork or decorative items that you feel will lend a nice feeling to the room without it being overdone.
The next step is to do some basic fix-ups around your home. Take a look around as if you were a perspective buyer and see what catches your eye. Do you have wallpaper straight out of the 70's in your bathroom? Is there a hole in one of your walls? Is your cabinet hardware outdated? Is your bathroom painted a horrible shade of mint green? These are all easy, cheap fixes that can add TONS of value to your home. See following list for some ideas of ways to update:
Wallpaper tends to be very personal and can make a break a deal depending on the personal tastes of a buyer. Even if you think the wallpaper looks good, it may not be suited to a wide range of buyers. You should strongly consider painting over wallpaper in a neutral color. It will expand your market, and in many cases can help a room look much bigger.
If your walls are painted, be sure that the color is one that will appeal to a large audience. While you may be a huge fan of royal purple or deep burgundy, a soft neutral color will fit with more people's styles as well as making your room appear much larger. Remember, you are not decorating for yourself, but instead or trying to make your home look like a model home so that anyone can see themselves living there.
Also included under the walls section would be making any obvious repairs to things like holes, chipped plaster, missing baseboard trim, etc. Some great basic repair tutorials can be found on the DIY Network site:
Flooring is a tough subject because it can be costly to replace. On the other hand it is one of the first things buyers notice, so if your floors aren't up to par it may warrant taking a look at.
If you have outdated carpet in an older home, try carefully lifting a corner of it to see what is underneath. Often times the carpet will have been laid over hardwood floors in older homes. Hardwoods are very popular and can add a ton of extra value to your home. If you are lucky enough to find hardwoods in your home, pull up the carpet and see what kind of shape the floors are in. If they are decent you can leave them. If they are very worn or have lots of scratches you may want to consider refinishing them. You can rent a floor sander from most major home improvement stores and do it yourself, or you can hire someone to do it. The cost is not very significant compared to the value you will add to your home.
If you don't have decent floors under the carpet, rent a steam cleaner and clean the carpets. In some cases they may need to even be cleaned twice, depending how old or stained they are. Cleaning the carpets is a great way both to brighten and freshen a room and to clear up any odors that may be lurking in the carpet.
If you have linoleum floors that are damaged in a high visibility area, consider patching them using this techinique:
http://www.allaroundthehouse.com/lib.def.na44.htm
If you have ceramic tile floors buy a heavy-duty grout cleaner and clean them well to make them look as new as possible.
Kitchens are one of the biggest selling features of a home. Take a look at your cabinets to see if they are out of date. If they are, consider painting them a nice light color. This will both clean them up and make them look much more modern. Another easy and relatively cheap fix is to purchase and install new hardware on your doors and drawers. This will quickly update the look of many older cabinets without a whole lot of money out of pocket. Since much of the value of a home is in the kitchen a small investment here will definitely pay off in the sale price of your home.
When selling your home it is vital that it be as clean as possible! Not only do dirty or dusty houses look dirty or dusty, but the dirt and dust collects odors that can make for a less than pleasant shopping experience for buyers.
One of the best and cheapest things you can do is to wash your windows. You will be amazed at how much brighter and cleaner your house seems with the windows clean!
You want your house to seem bright and airy, and simply replacing your light bulbs with 100 watt bulbs can help immensely! Dark rooms feel oppressive and closed in, while bright rooms feel open and inviting.
Additionally, updating outdated light fixtures (especially in the bathroom) will go a long way to adding value to your home.
The first thing people see when they arrive to view your home is the outside. Clean up your front yard, and be sure your lawn is mowed and tidy. Consider planting flowers or putting out pots of of them. The color from the flowers will go a long way in making your home more attractive to buyers. If you already have flower beds be sure they are weeded and tidy looking.
If your entry is a bit undefined consider painting your front door in a bright, rich shade. If it will work with your house, go with a nice rich red color. If red won't work try black or dark brown to really make it stand out. We have written a full article on curb appea for the exterior of homesl that we highly recommend you read.
While heavy curtains or blinds may provide great privacy for you while you are living in a home, when you are selling they can keep natural light from coming in and make your home feel dark and confined.
Consider replacing heavy drapes with light, airy window treatments. A very cheap fix is to buy flat white sheets and hang them from your curtain rod with curtain clips. If the sheets are too long you can pool the extra fabric in a pleasing arrangement on the floor. When showing your house be sure that your blinds are pulled up to allow as much light as possible into your rooms.
Consider buying new bedding. It is not very expensive, and crisp, clean linens will make your bedrooms feel clean and fresh.
Now that you have cleared out all your clutter and fixed and updated your rooms, it's time to re-decorate and add a few finishing touches.
First, you will need to arrange your remaining furniture in a pleasing manner. You want your furniture to help highlight features of your home and to go with the traffic flow instead of hindering it. Consider placing furniture at an angle if it will aid in traffic flow, make the room look bigger, or even direct a buyer's eye to an important feature like a great view of your beautiful patio.
For ideas on how to arrange your furniture, look at interior design photos online. HGTV has a nice selection here:
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/designers_portfolio_main/
Once you have your furniture in place, hang or place any of the few pieces of art or decorative objects that you decided to leave unpacked. Hopefully you didn't leave too much out!
Buy some pillar candles and put them out in a nice arrangement in each room. If you have a dining room table, consider putting candlesticks on it. When you show your home be sure to light all the candles since they will make it seem warm and inviting.
Also, buy fresh flowers and put them out in vases throughout your house. They will look beautiful and will help to dress it up.
That's it! Whether you follow some or all of these tips, they will help to add value to your home and sell it faster.