When you put your home up for sale, your #1 goal is to attract buyers. So how do you do that? It’s easy! Here six things you can do to make buyers fall in love with your home when you stage it for sale.
6 Things That Attract Home Buyers.
No matter what kind of home you have, buyers will more likely to make a viewing appointment if you keep these six things in mind when you’re preparing your home for sale.
#1. Light and Bright
Try to make your home look as light and bright as possible. Dark and dingy rooms turn buyers off. Open all window treatments to their fullest—or simply take your window treatments down. Then wash your windows to let in the maximum amount of light.
Choose light colors over dark. Light, white spaces look better in online photos and feel more welcoming in person. A classic home staging strategy is to use white furniture and white rugs and reflective surfaces such as glass and mirrors with some natural textured elements added for warmth and contrast.
#2. Lots of Space
Larger homes feel more expensive and are appealing to a lot of buyers. No one wants to buy a house that feels cramped and overcrowded. But even small homes can be made to look larger by using furniture that is in keeping with the size of the room. For instance, don’t used large, oversized furniture unless you have large, oversized rooms. Most homes benefit from smaller scaled furniture which make rooms feel surprisingly larger.
Less is more. When you stage your home, you want less furniture and accessories in it than you do when you’re living in it. Make your home feel larger by removing excess items and decluttering.
#3. Clean
Your staged home should be absolutely spotless. Do the white glove test everywhere. Look up, look down, look around your home in places that you normally don’t think about. Buyers love clean homes and are are understandably turned off by other people’s dirt.
#4. Well-maintained and move-in ready.
A well-maintained home tells buyers that they won’t have a lot of surprises and expenses when they move in. You will attract more buyers when selling your home if it feels like it has been taken care of. If buyers think your house has been neglected they will either drop their price—or go running!
#5. Up-to-Date
Staged homes that are more in keeping with the latest interior design trends attract more buyers. Your home probably won’t be the only one for sale in your price range in your market. So if your home is fresh and up-to-date compared to your competition buyers will be more likely to choose your home. Also, if they don’t think they will need to do any renovating they will offer more.
#6. Highlight selling features
Make sure buyers notice your home’s selling features. Do you know your home’s selling features? I’ve been in many houses where fireplaces have been obscured by large furniture. You might take for granted some things about your home but you don’t want buyers to! Know your home’s selling features and be sure to showcase them for a successful home staging.
Is home staging worth the trouble and expense?
Absolutely. It can’t be overstated how crucial it is to grab buyer’s attention with great photos or video. Buyers will ONLY go to see a home if they like how a home looks online.
It’s very difficult for a real estate agent to convince a buyer to view a home if that buyer has already made their mind up that they’re not interested in it after seeing the photos online.
You have about three seconds to make a good first impression online before you risk losing a lot of potential buyers. Make sure those photos look great so that you’ve got the buyer wanting to scroll to see the rest of the photos and to add your home to their list of homes to visit. If you don’t make it onto a high number of buyers’ “favorites” lists, you will have less people come to see your home in person and therefore, less potential offers.
Home staging means more attractive photos. Which means more buyers in your door.
So, try to make your home look as light, bright, large, well-maintained, clean, and up-to-date as possible and it will look great in online photos. And the more potential buyers you get in your door, the more likely you are to receive multiple offers!
If you’d like to learn more about home staging and how to attract buyers to your home, you can pre-order my new book, Secrets of Home Staging: The Essential Guide to Getting Higher Offers…Faster!
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