Author: Alice Robertson
Easy Ways to Make Your House Attractive to Buyers
Now that you’ve decided to put your house up for sale, you’ll need to make sure it is ready to be photographed and viewed by potential buyers. Don’t miss out on your chance for a quick, profitable sale by ignoring some simple things that can make your house stand out.
Decluttering Your House
The first step towards getting your house ready for potential buyers is getting rid of clutter. The best way to do this is to go room by room and determine what needs to be removed. In most cases, your bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and basement or attic will hide the most clutter. When going through these areas, you should take a hard look at the clothing, linens, utensils, equipment, and accessories you rarely use. In this article by Graceful Abandon, there are some items that should be easy to discard; these include products that are expired, old magazines, old CDs, and storage containers without lids.
To ensure that you’ll complete your decluttering in a timely manner, it’s best to come up with a good plan. A successful plan must detail a timeline for removing clutter as well as daily tasks to be accomplished. You can also use handy tricks like the 12-12-12 rule, which requires that you find 12 things to donate, 12 things to discard and 12 things to keep.
Depersonalizing Your Living Spaces
When you depersonalize your home, you remove items that will remind buyers that the house belongs to you. To allow buyers to see themselves in the house, you need to make it an attractive blank slate. This may sound impossible if you[‘ve spent time placing your personal mark on the home. This article by HomeLight, however, highlights some easy ways you can get it done. You can start by repainting bright walls and removing wallpaper buyers won’t like. You should also remove personal photos, record collections, or any sporting equipment. If you have furniture that is tattered or that caters to a very specific taste, you can easily cover it up before taking pictures or hosting an open house. If it’s not possible to re-organize the home to keep your items hidden from buyers, you may need to investigate self-storage options.
Getting the House Ready
Once you’ve cleared the house of clutter and personal items, it’s time to stage it. Staging makes the most of certain areas that can make a buyer fall in love. For example, research shows that buyers like neutral colors like off-white on their walls but dark stains like walnut on the flooring. Brighter rooms give buyers a sense of warmth so you’ll need to take advantage of any natural light your home has or install adequate lighting in the rooms. Staging a home doesn’t need to break your budget either. PropertyMe lists a number of affordable ways to make that valuable first impression. The suggestions include using mirrors to make rooms appear better lit and more spacious as well as using white linen in the bathroom to enforce the feeling of cleanliness.
Of course, staging doesn’t just apply to the inside of your house. You can easily “wow” prospective buyers from the outside by improving the curb appeal with a nicely manicured lawn and well-pruned hedges.
How You Benefit From Staging Your House
Apart from making the house look more attractive, there are definite financial benefits for you as the seller when you stage your house. Recent statistics show that homes that are staged spend, on average, 73 percent less time on the market than homes that aren’t (homes in Jacksonville spend an average of 37 days on the market). This is important because the purchase price of a house tends to go down the longer it takes to sell. Buyers have also paid as much as 5 percent over the listing price for homes that are staged and have noted that they prefer staged homes because it’s easier for them to see themselves living there.
Getting your house ready for sale may seem overwhelming at first, but it’s quite easy and affordable when you know the right way to take it on.
Photo via Pixabay