When it comes to selling your home, making it look the best will give you a great chance of selling quickly and at a higher price. According to the Real Estate Staging Association, homes that were staged sold 9 days sooner than the average homes’ days on market and 73% of staged homes sold above asking price. These are great reasons to stage your home and make it look appealing to the perfect buyer, so they can picture themselves living in it. Let’s have a look at some helpful tips to stage your home and make it look inviting for everyone.
1) Give your home a really good deep clean
The first thing you want to do before you start painting or changing anything is to give your home a good deep clean. This should go beyond your regular day-to-day cleaning and you might opt to hire a professional who has the experience and tools to make your home sparkle. Make sure to communicate that you are cleaning the home for staging purposes so they can do a thorough job and get into all the spaces you might normally neglect.
Don’t forget curb-appeal – clean the exterior of your home for perfect listing-ready photos! If your yard needs a major clean up then check out local landscapers to give you some extra help. Just like cleaners, they often have different equipment or techniques to make your yard look fresh and new, making the whole house look welcoming right away.
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2) Spruce up your front door
The front door is one of the first things a buyer will be looking at when they come to view your home. Prior to listing, give your front door a fresh coat of paint and clean up the rest of the front porch. Add some fun decor or a large plant to make the area look well maintained. You can also try adding a clever welcome mat or replace the front doors hardware with a “smart lock” to add a quick tech upgrade that buyers will love.
Giving your front door a splash of color is a fun trend that makes a big impact with minimal effort. If you’re stuck on what colour to choose then look at the colour of the rest of the exterior and any colors that appear in the front yard.
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3) Get rid of your clutter
Go through your home room by room and remove anything that makes the area look and feel too cluttered. You want to show off the space in the rooms as much as possible so you might need to rearrange some furniture or pack away some items from over cluttered shelves. It’s also a good idea to pack away personal items that you wouldn’t want prospective buyers seeing.
Personal photos and family-related decor can remain in the home but some prefer to pack it away to make the home as neutral looking as possible. This will depend on the type of buyer you’re trying to appeal to. A large family might enjoy seeing that the home has been enjoyed by a previous family over the years but a single person might see the family photos and decide the house is too much space for one person.
4) Stick to neutrals
While you might love the bright red accent wall that you added to your bathroom when you redecorated a few years ago, it may not suit your buyer’s taste. Try to fix up anything that might not appeal to everyone. You want to keep the main colors of the rooms as neutral as possible with small dashes of color in well-placed areas.
If you have a room that’s painted a dark color like black or burgundy then painting it might seem like more work than you’re willing to attempt. If you want to keep the color on the walls then swap out the furniture instead. Lighter neutrals such as light grey and cream are great options to keep decor neutral in darker painted rooms.
Related: Modern, Classic and Bold Decor Tips
5) Don’t forget the details
A quick way to make the home look ready for a new owner is by swapping out older, tired-looking household items with fresh, new ones. Bedsheets and towels are quick and cost-efficient to replace and can improve the overall feel of bathrooms and bedrooms. Buy a set of fluffy white towels, fresh white bed sheets, and clean kitchen towels, and give them all a quick wash to get out any creases. Add them to rooms before viewings and stash them away when you aren’t welcoming potential buyers, so they stay looking crisp and new.
Replacing these small items will make the room look bright, clean, and well maintained. It also gives off an air of luxury by making the home feel similar to a welcoming hotel. Buyers love to feel like the home is inviting them inside instead of feeling like they’re walking in on someone else’s personal belongings.
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6) Trick some light into the space
Open up any dark spaces in the home by bringing in natural light using open windows and mirrors. You might have some rooms where the windows are often closed for privacy but now is the time to open them up and show off the room as much as possible. Remove any outdated window treatments and replace them with light and airy curtains to enhance the natural light.
For rooms that have low natural lighting, use mirrors to make the space seem brighter. Mirrors paired with light-coloured walls and high-placed lighting will brighten up even the darkest of spaces.
Staging your home is one of the easiest ways to potentially add value to your home very quickly. The better your home looks to a buyer, the more likely they are to purchase it quickly and for more than you’re asking for. Staging your home is certainly worth the effort!
