As a seller, one of your biggest questions is how to add value to your home before you put it on the market. Making repairs and staging a home properly can add to your bottom line. According to the National Association of Realtors®2015 Profile of Home Staging, most sellers’ agents believe that staging your home will increase offers, possibly by as much as 10%.
How to Prepare My Home for Listing
Preparing your home for sale is not an easy or quick task, but the results can be well worth the effort. To assess what must be done, tour your own home and be critical. Try to evaluate each room as if viewing the house for the first time and see what could possibly diminish the value of your home in a buyer’s eyes. This is also a great time to note and fix any lingering problems that were acceptable to you, but might cause a buyer to move on. Maybe ask a friend for help. Sometimes a new person will see things you have missed.
Your Sales Associate can also give you recommendations. He or she will know about the other houses for sale in your area and which upgrades are worth your time and money.
While there are almost always larger renovations that can be done: an updated kitchen or bathroom, a finished basement, these can require a large investment. Assess your situation and comparable homes for sale in your area before you make any significant financial commitments. Most homes are valued based on the comparable homes recently sold in the surrounding area. Improving the house significantly beyond the average of the neighborhood might not yield the desired results.
How Should I Stage My Home?
Staging a home is setting up your house to be viewed by others. Some sellers choose to work with a professional stager. They will work with you to help you get ready to show your home. It’s also possible to do it yourself with excellent results. Ask your Sales Associate to guide you in this process as well. Buyers are usually looking for a bright, open space and they appreciate a clean, neat appearance both inside and out.
De-cluttering is a big part of the process of staging a home. Remove personal items from around your home such as family photos and decorative items that are valuable or could easily be broken. Buyers want to see uncrowded walls, shelves and countertops. If you have a tight space, you might also want to consider removing any furniture that interrupts the flow of the home. Buyers will open your closets and built-in drawers, so be sure they are neat and organized.
Try to add light to any dark corners. Consider replacing pictures with mirrors to open up a space. Keep your kitchen counters clean and consider new, matching accents. Make the bath look luxurious with some new towels. Something as simple as pretty soaps and a few candles can make a bathroom feel like a spa. Another easy upgrade is to replace cabinet hardware. This small change can result in a new look.
For the outside of your home, planting flowers can be a nice, welcoming touch. Adding lighting to your landscaping can also increase your curb appeal. Solar lights are an easy and reasonably-priced enhancement.
The final step of staging a home is to carefully eliminate any information that can be learned about you from your personal possessions. Remove diplomas, wedding and vacation photos and any religious articles from your walls and shelves. Keep mail hidden away. Don’t leave anything around that could give a hint about your motivation for selling. You don’t want a buyer’s opinion of you to negatively affect their offer or willingness to negotiate.
