Tips to Stage Your Home to Sell

by John Allasio

 

Put your best foot forward.

Make a good first impression.

First impressions are the most lasting.

What I’m trying to say is, when it comes to houses, prospective buyers are going to judge your house based on their first, two-second impression of it, whether or not they should.

When others make strong judgments based on first impressions, it’s usually seen as a negative. Instead, look at your home’s first impression as an opportunity for you to get a leg up on your competition by wowing potential homebuyers.

Home staging is setting your home up as a neutral space where buyers can easily imagine the drama of their life unfolding. Home staging doesn’t have to mean dropping 10 or 20 grand on remodeling. A lot of it is doing all the little things right – making your home appear as attractive as possible and then getting out of your own way so buyers can see how they, not you, would live in the home.

I asked Joe Delia with Keller Williams Royal Oak Market Place for tips on how to best stage your home for a quick sell.

The Basics

Listing Photos

Put some effort into the listing photos – maybe even hire a professional photographer. Buyers sort through many, many listings online. If your photos fail to grab their attention, they may not even give your home a chance.

Clean Up

Clean and tidy goes a long way. “When it’s dirty, people focus on that,” explains Delia. Clean isn’t enough – make your home spotless.

Declutter

The close cousin to clean and tidy is decluttering your home. People have a hard time envisioning their belongings in a home when it’s packed with someone else’s stuff.
The seller should remove as much clutter as possible. Less furniture makes the space look bigger. The furniture you do leave out should be up for entertaining. Make traffic flow obvious to buyers.

Depersonalize the Space

Removing personal items like family photos is another important thing to do. It’s hard for buyers to envision themselves in an empty home and equally as hard to envision themselves in a home full of someone else’s life and mementoes.

Make it Bright and Open

Lots of natural light and storage space are helpful too. Bright, open, refreshing and relaxing are some of the feelings potential buyers want to sense when walking through your home.

Decorating and Updating

Be Consistent

A consistent décor theme is more important than having all the newest updates/materials. A buyer should be able to come into your home and immediately sense a flow, an order to the home and be able to picture themselves in that flow, Delia states.
If you have some brushed nickel and some brass hardware in your home, for example, replace one or the other so that everything matches. Avoid a combination of styles, like ultra-modern and antique, as much as possible too. Decide on a look for your home and commit to it.
Putting in new cupboard or drawer fronts and hardware and repainting your home in neutral colors are some relatively cheap fixes that will significantly revitalize your home. Setting out fresh fruit or flowers greatly increases the appeal and hominess of your home, without making it feel personal to you.

Remodeling vs. Updating

You can go for more extensive remodeling like a whole kitchen or bathroom overhaul if you want, but just adding some nice furniture, art pieces or stainless steel appliances (that stay with the home) will be more cost effective in increasing your home’s appeal.
Make bedrooms as serene as possible; don’t make bedrooms gender specific. Update bathrooms including tub, shower and vanities, clean grimy walls, change fixtures, clean shower doors. Paint out dated tiles on bathroom walls.

Outdoor Tactics

Remember that first impression? It started with the images the buyer saw online and is largely cemented in their mind when they drive up to your home, so make it look great!

• Power wash your driveway, deck, outside of home, etc.
• Cut the grass regularly
• Keep bushes and shrubs well-trimmed
• Clear out weeds
• Add flowers or other colorful accents to improve curb appeal
• Get rid of any dead plants

The bottom line is that it’s absolutely worth spending some time, effort and a little money to increase the appeal of your home. At the same time, don’t think you need hardwood floors, granite countertops and vaulted ceilings to get people to look at your home.

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5 Home Improvements That Won't Sell Your House

Here is a great article about upgrades to your house that won't sell it.  Take a look!  

If you remodel your house because you plan to live in it forever, then do whatever you want. But if you plan to remodel to help your resale value, beware of these projects.

Homeowners upgrade their homes for two reasons: They always dreamed of having a walk-in shower, or they think remodeling will boost their home’s value when it comes time to sell.

While the emotional value a remodeling project adds to a home usually pays off, unfortunately the monetary value rarely does.
Let’s face it, you’re not always going to recoup the money you spent on a remodeling project when it comes time to sell. Check out these examples to get an idea of what you shouldn’t do before you sell…

1. Adding a new facade to the exterior of your home

I live in a historic neighborhood comprising mostly of turn-of-the-century Craftsman Bungalows. A few years ago, adding a brick front over the original wood became all the rage in my neighborhood. Now it just looks out of place in the area. Last month, three houses went up for sale on my street – two with the brick facade and one with the original wood. The wood house sold right away while the brick fronts are still sitting there.

I’m not saying that was the reason why one house sold and the others didn’t, but spending the extra money sure didn’t seem to help. According to MSN, homes that stick out – like brick facades nestled among wood bungalows - won’t do anything for their value.

Alternative: While you should update the exterior of your home before you sell, stick with the original plans. For example, replacing weathered siding with the higher-end fiber-cement siding returned an average of 78 percent of what homeowners paid, according to Remodeling Magazine.

2. Putting in a pool

According to SmartMoney, adding an in-ground pool to your backyard won’t add any real value when it comes time to sell. In fact, large outdoor projects don’t typically appeal to a wide range of buyers. Most buyers would rather see an open yard space than a koi pond or 16-seater hot tub.

Alternative: Clean up the yard and add some basic landscaping to the front and back. Having a nice yard gives your home curb appeal, and it’s one of the cheaper remodeling projects you can do. In fact, a study by HomeGain shows that the average landscaping job costs $540 and adds $1,932 to your home’s value.

3. Converting your attic to a home office

Converting attic space into a useable room will appeal to buyers – if it’s the right kind of room. Rooms like home offices only appeal to buyers who consider working from home a plus. In fact, HGTV reports that a home office remodel only recoups 60 to 73 percent of the cost on average.

Alternative: Converting your attic space into something that appeals to everyone, such as a bedroom. On average, homeowners saw up to a 90 percent return on this project, according to HGTV.

4. Overhauling your entire kitchen

Kitchens are the one room in the house that will appeal to the most buyers, so you want it to be eye-catching. But, that doesn’t mean you need granite counter tops, wood floors, and a double Viking oven to sell your house. On average, homeowners spent $110,938 on an upscale kitchen remodel. But the new kitchen only increased home values by $63,731 on average (or about 57 percent), according to MSNBC.

Alternative: Do a smaller-scale kitchen remodel, and focus on the areas that are the most outdated. As a comparison, MSNBC found that a smaller kitchen remodel cost $19,588 on average but raised the home’s value by an average 72 percent.

5. Installing solar panels

Green homes are becoming more popular, so making your home more energy-efficient will appeal to buyers. But the big greening projects are costly. For example, The New York Times reports that while the cost of solar panels has gone down by about 40 percent, one homeowner still paid a whopping $77,000 to install a solar panel system. It would be nearly impossible to recoup that investment in this housing market.

Alternative: Upgrade your windows with energy-efficient models – you’ll make your home more energy-efficient without the hefty price tag of those huge greening projects. Double-pane energy-efficient windows provide better insulation, which lowers utility bills – improvements that appeal to every buyer. And if you buy Energy Star-rated windows, you’ll qualify for a tax credit.

Questions to ask yourself

Before starting a remodeling project, consider these points…
1. Will this upgrade add value to my house? If you’re remodeling because you plan to eventually sell your home, run your ideas past a real estate agent or professional contractor. Not every project automatically adds value to a house.
2. How will my house compare to other homes in my neighborhood? If you put your house on the market the same time as five of your neighbors, your house needs to stand out – but not too much. Most buyers won’t consider your house if it’s priced much higher than others in the same area – even if your upgrades are worth the higher value.
3. Does this upgrade appeal to a wide range of buyers? If you’re going for a standard kitchen remodel, odds are it will appeal to almost every buyer who comes through your house. But, if you’re planning to break the mold with your home remodel, you might be wasting your money. Run your idea past a few friends and see if they’d buy it.


To order your copy of Remodeling Hell, CLICK HERE
For more information about the Summit Murder Mystery series, CLICK HERE

Article source: moneytalknews.com