Staging: Showing Your Home At Its Best

As the inventory grows some prepping can mean a quicker sale at a higher price. I can provide professional references but some simple things can make a difference.....

Staging Tips

Clear out the closets and their clutter. Encourage the sellers to hold a yard
sale or donate unwanted household goods to charity.
Pack up extra toys,linens, small kitchen appliances, and the like and store them offsite or in the garage.
Be sure the trees are trimmed, the shrubs are pruned, and the lawn is
mowed and watered regularly. Turn on the sprinklers for five minutes 30 minutes
before the open house. It makes the lawn and driveway sparkle.
Sellers should refrain from cooking anything that leaves a distinctive odor (fish,
garlic, cabbage) and from introducing any other unappealing odors into the
home.
Ask the sellers to have a professional service clean the home, including the carpets and the windows.
Set the dining room table with attractive linens, dishes, and stemware.
For open houses ask the sellers’permission to serve cookies and coffee; people will linger longer.
Arrange fresh flowers throughout the home and have a fire in the fireplace in fall and winter.
Add extra lamps in dark rooms or dark corners, and turn on the lights when you show the home to prospective buyers.
Remove stacks of magazines, ashtrays, sports trophies, family photographs, and other distractions.

—Barb Schwarz, in “How to State Your Listings So They Sell Quickly,” The Real Estate Professional, July/August 1998) —Some of the tips in this section were adapted from “HomeStaging: The Key to Successful Selling,” by Matthew Vossier and Liz Talbot, National Relocation & Real Estate, Vol. 13, No. 6