Tips for Staging a Home When Selling
If you are considering selling your home, one of the most critical steps is preparing it for potential buyers to view. This means cleaning and staging the home to present it in the best light. A staged home is a canvas that allows buyers to picture their belongings in the house and envision what it would be like to live there.
While you may be comfortable cleaning and staging your home by yourself, you should consider consulting a real estate professional. They can help you prepare your home before showing it to potential buyers.
To help bring out the best in a home, follow these ten steps to stage a home to sell quickly and at the price that it deserves.
1. Clean and declutter
First and foremost, every house on the market should be clean. That means more than a standard vacuuming. Get all carpets professionally cleaned and all hardwood floors polished. Scrub the walls, scour the shower door, and bleach all sinks. Then, once the house is spotless, it’s time to declutter. Remove the items crammed on the mantel or within your bookshelves and create a more open space.
2. Make sure the house looks lived in
It’s easy to take step one too far and make your home feel like a hotel room. Make sure that for all the clean and uncluttered quality of the house, there is still a sense that people live there. If a home feels too cold and unwelcoming, it can turn off potential buyers.
3. Give the house curb appeal
To sell a house, you have to pique the interest of potential buyers. While adding expensive additions like a deck may not be feasible, it’s possible to add appeal on a budget. First, do all the cleaning and decluttering outside. Mow the lawn, remove anything in the yard, and power wash the sidewalk and walkways. Then, plant or hang fresh flowers to make the area feel warm and lively. A new coat of paint on the exterior of your home can help as well.
4. Rearrange your furniture for space and flow
Furniture in a home often focuses first on comfort and second on looks. However, when selling your home, the visual appeal should be a primary concern. Remove unnecessary pieces of furniture and rearrange others to maximize the sense of space from one room to another. Make sure to leave enough furniture that the home still feels inhabited.
5. Focus the eye on the big positives
If the house has a great fireplace, put a new rug in front of it that catches the eye. If the living room is spacious and open, add a fresh coat of paint and a painting on the wall that captures the potential buyer’s attention. The trick is to find what makes this particular house a great place to live and subtly remind all who visit what those features are.
6. Bring in new kitchen appliances
New kitchen appliances can make even the most outdated kitchen seem appealing. It can be a significant factor in the decision-making process of a potential buyer, especially if they love to cook.
7. Open the blinds
Sunlight is an excellent cure for an average room, so let in as much sunshine as possible. It will make the whole house feel more open and comfortable. Sunlight also often hides faults that bright artificial lighting exposes.
8. Use neutral colors
Soft and subtle colors often pair best with furniture in a home. While bright colors can be excellent in a limited amount, overdoing them may turn a potential buyer off. In fact, the benefit of neutral colors is that they are inoffensive to a broader audience. They feel clean and pleasant without creating too much of an emotional reaction.
This is not to say that the colors all have to be neutral tones. Adding soft reds, browns, oranges, greens, and blues to accent neutral shades of white and grey can be an attractive addition. A good rule of thumb is to stay away from anything that is too bright or loud.
9. Add some finer touches
A few fancy features in the house can go a long way in convincing someone to go from home admirer to home buyer. Renting furniture or home decor can accentuate the rooms within the home. While it’s important to be practical and reasonable in these upgrades (you want to stay within a set budget), they can do wonders when staging your home.
10. Forget your personal style
When you move into a house, your first thought is how to make it yours. When you sell a home, your first thought should be how to make it appeal to a potential buyer. Remove posters from the wall that spoke to you but may not speak to others. While you may love having your bookshelves crammed with books or old records, the next owner may find that look cluttered.
The trick is to keep the house looking pleasant and lived in. At the same time, the buyer should be able to walk in and envision how the house could look if it belonged to them.
Trust your home to Domain Realty Austin
Selling a house takes a lot of work as well as some experience, knowledge, and artistry. The real estate agents of Domain Realty Austin know what it takes to stage and sell a home in the Austin area. We are passionate about finding the right buyer for each house and the right house for each buyer.
If you are interested in selling your home, or if you are looking for a home in the Austin area, contact us at (512) 872-4211, or email us for more information at info(at)DomainRealtyAustin(dotted)com.