How to Stage your Home for Sale

Tips to Stage your home

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Curb appeal. Is the lawn mowed? Are the weeds pulled? Are the bushes trimmed? Is the entry neat, clean and welcoming, with perhaps colorful pots of flowers by the front door? And don't forget to hide your garbage cans.

Foyer/Entry. When you stand at the front door, what do you see? Does any item of furniture or art stand out like a sore thumb? Do you get a sense of space or blockage?

Walls, windows, floors. Have the windows been washed? Are the window treatments minimal? Has the wallpaper been removed? Are the walls painted in neutral colors? Has the wall-to-wall carpeting been taken up to show the hardwood floors, punctuated perhaps by a couple of area rugs? Is the carpet freshly cleaned?

The great room, family room, living room. Have you pulled the furniture away from the walls and floated it around a focal point (such as a fireplace)? Does the furniture arrangement make the room seem spacious or cramped? Does the furniture seem dated? Go with a classic sofa and a couple of chairs, a few tables and lamps. And take half the books and knickknacks from the bookshelves, and rearrange things to leave spaces. Think of your visit to any model home subdivisions in the past! Does your home represent this?

The dining room. Set the table, as though you're expecting guests. (You are, and you hope they'll buy.)

The kitchen. Remove just about everything from the counter tops. (You might leave the coffeepot and a bin of utensils.) Remove any items that don’t belong in a kitchen. If you pay bills in your kitchen buy a bill organizer to limit the amount of scattered paperwork. Take the magnets and the notes off the refrigerator. Organize your pantry. Go through your cabinets and cupboards, and straighten and remove things. Potential buyers snoop through cabinets. You want them to see there's plenty of space.

Closets. Are they so precariously stuffed that things fall on your head when you open the door? You know the drill: Clean them out so that only a limited number of coats and clothes remain, letting buyers see how much room they'll have for their clothes. Pack up your off season clothes into boxes for now. You are getting ready to move anyway.

The bedrooms. "Tired" bedding is the bane of stagers. Consider buying some fluffy down duvets and pillows with shams in neutral colors that you can throw over your faded comforters and deflated pillows every morning. You want the bed to look like one in an upscale hotel room.

The garage. Nothing shows a home's age more than a garage floor. Clean off the grease stains and paint it. Organize the gear you have in there. And a key question: Can you actually pull your car(s) into the garage?

Toy control. Corral the toys in a chest or cabinet in the family room. Or put them in the kids' bedrooms. Organize them into bins or laundry baskets.

Pet control/odor control. Vacuum away pet hair daily. Make sure glass is free of pet/kid prints and drool. Hide the kitty litter box, and clean it daily. If you use air fresheners consider the same scent throughout the house to remain uniform.

Park your point of view in storage. Remove all religious symbols, political posters, artful nudes and indications of alternative lifestyles.

 

 

For more information on staging your home or to contact us for a free CMA and complimentary walk-through on staging your home please contact;

 

THE JEN TEAM- Dani Miller - Solutions Real Estate - East Valley

 

 

Selling in this market? What is THIS market?

I just wanted to send out a little information to all of you who may be thinking of selling in the near future or this year. I had a conversation with a lady today and it made me think that a lot of people out there may have the misconception about what is going on in the market place at this time. Whose information is the most beneficial, what statistics are going to steer the seller in the right direction to sell their home. There are plenty of sites out there giving estimates these days and more and more sellers or potential sellers are looking to these sources to give them the information that they need to decide if, when and how much to sell their house for. There are also agents who will list your home for whatever it is that you a the seller think you can get for it based on your found statistics.
My word of caution when relying on Internet sources to help you sell your home.
#1 These sites such as Zillow.com and Trulia.com among others may be a good guideline to show you what is going on in the area but the estimates that they give can often be skewed depending on the data reported. Ask yourself this, is everything reported? Is everything reported accurately?
I showed a home the other day listed as a 0 car garage, it had a 3 car garage, another listed in Skyline Ranch upon driving there I realized it is in fact in Morning Sun Farms, this is just an example of the information that can be reported incorrectly to such websites. This also happens with pricing, days on market, and homes that sometimes sell and are still showing available.
#2 Ask yourself where do I live? What are the amenities of my subdivision? What are the most recent sales, conditions, attributes? There are definitely pockets of homes that sell for less or more depending on where you are in your city, your town and sometimes even what street you live on in a particular subdivision.
#3 Ask yourself why you are selling? What is the motivation behind your sale? Is it to up size, downsize, move cities, because of a school or a job location?
#4 Are you even ready to sell at all? Do you want to try and sell the home on your own? Do you want to list it with a Realtor? What are all your options?

Remember selling is a big decision, almost as big as buying. Make sure to consult a Realtor for free before you do make that decision, find out what the market is like in your city, subdivision, street- see what that Realtor can do for you.  Are you looking to make as much money as possible or save on commission? This may or may not be a good idea. You would probably never chose the cheapest surgeon or most inexpensive attorney who is giving out a discounted deal. Do all your research before selling For Sale By Owner or picking the Realtor with the cheapest fees- it may make all the difference in selling your home.
If you are interested in a free consultation or finding about what the market is like in your area please give me a call or shoot me over an email.
There are lots of agents out there for you to chose from and frankly I might not be the right one for you, but I would love the opportunity to find out. There is a difference between agents who will tell you what you want to hear to get your listing and agents who will do the research and tell you like it is to actually sell your home.