If you are ready to sell your home, there are things you can do to increase its appeal to potential buyers who come to view it. One simple way to do this is to make it look and feel like a home they can see as their own.
Why This Matters
The most important psychological impact of preparing your home for sale is to ensure that prospective buyers can see themselves living in your home. Removing your own personal touches – things like photographs, personal mementos, or sentimental knick-knacks – that have served to make your home, yours, is an important part of this.
When potential buyers tour your home and can envision themselves eating, sleeping, resting, relaxing, entertaining friends and family there, you’re a great step ahead.
Six Tips for Effective Staging
There are many things you can do to make your home more appealing but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Here are a few simple steps you can take to make your home more attractive to potential buyers.
Curb Appeal
We’re sure you’ve heard the term before. Consumer Reports suggests increased property value up to five percent results from good curb appeal but it’s not just about how your lawn looks, how clean your driveway or sidewalks are, or how the landscaping is done. Curb appeal is how the house looks as it is approached. This means simply cleaning the front porch ensuring the front door is clean – possibly even repainted when necessary – adds to your home’s curb appeal.
De-clutter & Depersonalize
Removing personalized items such as memorabilia, family photos, etc. will not just help your home look bigger and more open. It will also prevent buyers from being distracted by your belongings and, instead, envision their own in its place.
Clean, Clean, Clean
Our homes have our unique scents and feelings to them. When potential buyers walk through your door, you want them to be able to see a clean, clutter-free home, absent any scents or odors that might be overwhelming.
Perform Minor Repairs
If there are light repairs that you can take care of, make time to do it yourself. Some minor repairs you can likely do yourself might include:
- Replacing broken/stained light switches.
- Paint is worn out or faded walls.
- Have the floors cleaned.
- Replace outdated fixtures.
- Clean gutters.
Don’t worry about bigger repairs done by contractors and handyman services. These can be resolved after an inspection when an offer is pending.
Utilize Expertise
Before listing, hiring a qualified real estate agent to list your home and do a walk-through and make suggestions to help create a neutral environment for an optimal appeal to the most buyers. Real estate agents know the tricks of the trade and are familiar with the constant changes of home-buying trends.
Selling a home requires a lot of work, follow-up, and negotiation expertise and statistics show that 91 percent of sellers were assisted by a real estate agent when selling their home. It’s not easy to stage a home while you are still living in it so these tips get you as close as possible.
About Kirk: Kirk loves his community its people. He works as hard now as he did on day one. He will keep you a top priority. He loves meeting new people and learning their story and does what he can to help them achieve their goals in life.
Contact Kirk and his team to help you prepare and list your home for sale in Northwest Arkansas.