Home Staging Techniques - Top Tips To Get Your Home Ready To Sell - Part 1

I’m not going to ramble on about baking bread and brewing coffee…lets get right down to business. This Home Staging Advice will get you on the right path to getting your house sold. It’s not Rocket Salad and it doesn’t have to cost you money.

Home Staging Techniques 1 - Get Going Now

Don’t wait until your house in on the market and not getting any viewings or offers. This is the biggest mistake buyers make. You want to get the maximum price for your property don’t you? YOU DON’T!

Well come on even Estate Agents will knock off a few thousand pounds if they think that your property will be a ‘Hard Sell’ so don’t start off with a lower asking price than you could have got.

Home Staging Techniques 2 - The ‘D’ Word

Do I even need to say it…..’DeClutter’ It may not have been in our dictionaries before Ann Maurice stormed our shores but boy we’ve got used to hearing that word. Well funny thing is she’s right. As we’ve got wealthier as a nation, we have acquired more and more. Our little British homes weren’t designed for a TV in every room, let alone the DVD player, the ’X’ box, and every sort of gadget you can think of…well I won’t go on. But having every surface covered with your everyday ‘necessary’ items makes the place look untidy and worse…smaller.

Now in a later article I will go into this subject in a little more detail. It really is quite fascinating and I often learn a lot about a client from what they hoard oops I mean treasure.

Start in a neutral room like the bathroom or kitchen…or the downstairs loo. While the kettle boils for that cup of tea…work on just 1 drawer. Over the course of the evening you could have tidied out quite a lot of rubbish. The aim is to create ‘space in your place’ so don’t just shift it to another spot. If you don’t use it, loose it!

The great thing about this first tip is ITS FREE and it cost you nothing more than time and effort.

Home Staging Techniques 3 - The ‘C’ word

No one likes the idea of living with other people’s dirt…so get cleaning. Seriously if your home smells and looks clean you are creating a great environment for those viewers. Think about it. Kitchens, Bathrooms and Toilets should all do Aggie & Kim proud. You want your viewers to be thinking about buying your home…not Cleaning it.

Cleaning your home goes hand in hand with decluttering it. So get the bin, bags, dusters, sponges and rubber gloves out and get cleaning.

Like DeCluttering, tackle a room at a time. Get everyone to give a hand. The kids can do their bedroom.

Don’t forget to clean windows, they will let in a lot more light, and make the place feel brighter and bigger.

Polish door fittings, taps, sinks and anything that will add a gleam to your home.

Fantastic bonus number 2 THIS IS FREE to do as well.

By both decluttering and cleaning your home you will have done 2 of the most effective things you can in preparing your home to sell. Don’t underestimate their importance.

What next?

Home Staging Techniques 4 - The ‘K’ word – Kerb appeal

First impressions count…oh the clichés are coming thick and fast here. But yes people do make long lasting judgments by what they first see.

Come on if you were off to an interview then you would give some thought and time to your appearance wouldn’t you?

Give your hair a brush, maybe even get it cut, shave, put your best clothes on and practice what you are going to say.

Well think of the viewer as your potential interviewer…they will be looking to see how well your home is turned out, does it pass the ‘first reaction’ test?

Even before those viewers have got out of their cars they will have begun judging your home, and they haven’t even set foot inside your driveway yet. All those viewers will have passed your neighbours before reaching your front door.

How does yours compare? Take a wander down the street and be honest. How good does your home look compared to the others in the street? Does the gate work? Is it missing? How about the front wall, is it half falling down? Are the beds looking good or full of weeds? Is the pathway clear or does it resemble an obstacle course, full of odds and ends, wheelie bins, the recycle box and the kid’s toys?

All these little details matter. They add up to a picture in the viewers mind…is this house welcoming, well looked after, appealing or is it a disappointment! Your neighbours may not be selling, but you don’t want your home to be seen as a disappointment to the viewer because it doesn’t compare well with the neighbours.

Home Staging Techniques 5 - Do That DIY

One of the biggest mistakes that sellers make is to think that they can leave all those little DIY jobs that they have been meaning to do for ages, undone because they are moving. Sellers assume buyers won’t notice but I say that viewers come with ‘Magnifying Glasses’ not ‘Rose Tinted Glasses’.

Viewers see everything. They see the cracked tiles in the kitchen, they see the loose coving around the ceiling, and they see that odd patch of damp. And every time they see an unfinished job or a problem that needs sorting they mentally reduce the value of the property in their opinion. Viewers always overestimate the cost of putting a problem right.

Don’t give them an excuse to reduce the price of your property or worse dismiss it as ‘too much work to put right’. Do That DIY…NOW.

For the next 6 'Top Tips' see the next article 'Home Staging Techniques - Top Tips To Get Your Home Ready To Sell - Part 2'