If you’re like most homeowners, you dream of selling your home quickly and at a great price. But sometimes it can feel like an uphill battle – making all the necessary repairs, responding to showings, and listening to feedback from less-than-thrilled potential buyers can start to make you wonder if the effort is even worth it. Luckily, there are some easy tips and tricks you can employ when staging your home that will help guarantee faster sales time while also getting more money out of the deal! Keep reading to find out what these simple steps are so that you can have confidence in realizing optimal returns with minimal stress!

Top 5 Tips

Start With Curb Appeal

First impressions matter, so make your home stand out the instant buyers pull up to the curb. Some upgrades can be done in a weekend and will cost more in sweat equity than actual dollars. A few suggestions: rent a pressure washer to remove dirt and grime from your siding, roof, fascia and gutters. Paint the front door and/or shutters a bright color, but make sure it coordinates well with the rest of the home’s colors. Replace old house numbers, lighting, the mailbox and welcome mat. Clean up the edging around flowerbeds and lay down fresh mulch. Fill in empty beds with small shrubs, seasonal flowers and greenery. Even if it’s the dead of winter, get a pair of urns or large planters and fill them with small evergreen shrubs and cold-hardy annuals. If you have window boxes, fill them with fresh greenery too. If your porch or stoop has room for furniture, add a couple of chairs to expand your outdoor living space.

Pare Down Furniture

The most important thing you can do to prepare your home for sale is to get rid of clutter. One of the major contributors to a cluttered look is having too much furniture. When professional stagers descend on a home being prepped for market, they often whisk away as much as half the owner’s furnishings so the house looks bigger. You want potential buyers to be able to move around each room without being blocked by furniture. Make sure they can easily access your home’s best features like the fireplace or built-in bookshelves, and make sure they can look out all the windows. Avoid a cluttered look by minimizing items on the coffee table and not piling so many pillows on the couch that nobody can sit on it.

Depersonalize

Potential buyers want to be able to picture themselves in your home, and that’s hard to do if all they see are your personal items. Remove family photos, your kids’ artwork, framed diplomas and personal collections. Pack these items up to take to your new home and replace them with generic artwork.

Make the Bedrooms Luxe

Create an inviting and serene main bedroom with a well-made bed covered in luxurious linens. Tucking a large comforter into a soft-colored duvet will give your bed that plump and plush look that you see in high-end hotels. Use a solid color duvet and add color with shams, throw pillows and extra blankets. Keep nightstands uncluttered and remove personal items.

Erase Signs of Pets

I totally understand how much you love your pets (I do, too), but potential buyers may be turned off by pet odors or be allergic to fur and dander. Thoroughly clean the areas where your pets spend most of their time and add air fresheners. When potential buyers come calling, throw the pet beds, crates, toys, food dishes and litter boxes in your car then take Fido or Fluffy for a walk in the park.

Also, Coldwell Banker Realty offers a program that helps home owners stage their property before putting it on the market. It’s an awesome service if you’re cash strapped but need to make improvements before listing your home.

I offer a complimentary one hour staging walk through as well. I will walk through your property (inside and out) and share ideas on getting your home ready to sell.