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Home Staging Tips & Techniques

Tips for Selling Your Home

First impressions are everything, especially when you’re trying to sell your home. There are several home staging tips and techniques you can learn in order to make your home appeal to potential buyers. The ultimate goal to home staging is to create an environment that interests as many home buyers as possible, resulting in a quick sale. Here are some of the top home staging tips and techniques you should follow:

1. Cut the clutter – If your home is cluttered, you’re sending the message that it isn’t large enough to accommodate your needs, so tidying will help each room look bigger and better. It’s vital that you get rid of all clutter in your home, and that doesn’t mean shoving it all into drawers, cupboards, and closets. In fact, it’s just as important that you declutter these areas too as it’s inevitable that home buyers will also be looking in your closets and cupboards. If you need to, rent a storage unit to store all your extra belongings until you move. To help get you started on decluttering, read Top 26 Home Organization Tips to Get Rid of Clutter.

2. Make Mr. Clean proud – I mean, really proud. Scrub your home from top to bottom until it sparkles and shines. When you’re selling your home, you’re going to have potential buyers coming through all the time, so make sure to keep on top of things once you’ve done the initial deep cleaning.

Clean House

3. Lose the stink – Another one of the most important staging tips a home seller must follow is ensuring their home doesn’t smell. This rule applies to all rooms in the house. Make sure you scoop the poop in your cat’s litter box every day and always before you show your home to potential buyers (or even consider tip #5). Also, your home shouldn’t smell of meat cooking, cigarette smoke, sweaty teenagers, etc. Further, you really shouldn’t spray your home with air fresheners before showing it – doing so just screams “I’m covering up a gross stink!” If it’s going to smell of anything, it should be fresh flowers or bread in the oven.

4. Lighten up – You want your home to be as bright as possible. Make sure you clean the windows (inside and out) and open the curtains. Also, adding mirrors can help reflect light and make a room look larger.

5. Find a home for pets – Not all potential buyers are going to be animal lovers. As difficult as it may be, you might want to consider booking Fido into a doggy hotel or getting Fluffy to lodge at a friend’s house. This applies to small caged critters too. If you just can’t part with your furry friend, you absolutely must remove as much evidence of them as possible: make sure there is no fur on the floors, the toys are picked up, the poop is scooped (in the yard too!), etc.

6. Don’t make it personal – As much as you love that photo of your son using the potty for the first time or the Bob Marley poster you have in your bedroom, it doesn’t mean everyone else loves it too. It’s important that you remove all personal items from your home when staging it. You want potential buyers to be able to vision themselves living there, which may be impossible for them to do if they can’t see beyond the Princess Diana or Elvis Presley collector plates you have on your walls.

Home Staging Tips

7. Keep it neutral – Try to keep your décor as neutral as possible. Consider storing anything that has loud patterns and colours that may not appeal to everyone’s tastes.

8. Make each room have a specific purpose – Sure, the office/spare room/play room/library might work for you and your family’s needs, but when you’re staging your home, you should designate each room to its intended purpose. If, for example, you’ve listed your home as a 3 bedroom house, make sure that multipurpose room is converted back into a bedroom before putting your house on the market.

9. Make minor repairs – Make sure to tighten loose knobs, fix leaky faucets, change burnt out light bulbs, etc. If you are unable to do so yourself, consider hiring a handyman to do the repairs for you.

10. Less is more – In order to showcase each room to its fullest potential, you want it to appear as large as possible. Remove any extra furniture that isn’t needed (another reason to rent a storage unit), get rid of all kitchen gadgets that are on the countertop that you can temporarily live without, store large backyard toys, etc.

11. Paint – Not everybody loves flowery wallpaper or purple walls. A fresh coat of paint does wonders for any home. One of the best home staging tips you can follow is to paint rooms a neutral colour, such as beige or cream.

12. Don’t forget the outside – Curb appeal is just as important as the inside. Tidy the yard, making sure leaves are raked, grass is mowed, and kids’ toys are picked up. Adding a fresh coat of paint to the door and window shutters can also give your home a cheap pick-me-up. If you have a detached garage or shed, make sure these are as clutter-free as possible too.

More Home Staging Tips & Techniques

Do you have any great home staging tips or ideas? Leave a comment to let us know!