Staging refers to decorating and arranging your home to showcase its best features and assets – at a better price for faster sales. And, indeed, in the current real estate market, staging is no longer optional. When it comes to a financial transaction as big as selling a house, you just can’t leave anything to chance. Besides, the ROI is obviously significant when you compare the cost of staging with the money that can make you at the time of sale. So let’s take a look at 7 areas where sellers forget to stage when selling their Greeley Colorado houses to help you get it right.
1. Decluttering and Depersonalizing
This is not strictly an area sellers forget to stage, but is often a neglected step, unless we keep in mind closets. Start with this sound advice from real estate experts first: “One is it distracts buyers from the features of your home. The other is that it makes it seem like the home doesn’t have enough storage space. . . Keep in mind that buyers will be interested in your closet space so it may not be the best strategy to throw everything in the closet to hide it.”
But decluttering has a more important purpose to get out of the way all that stuff. It also serves to depersonalize your house, making it a blank canvas that allows buyers to see it as their own home with their own possessions in it.
2. Odor Removal
Again, this is not really an area, but it is often forgotten by sellers because after years of living in the house they have become accustomed to those odors. But be assured that they will notice buyers (and possibly turn them off). Bringing friends or neighbors may be a good idea to help you identify odors that need to be removed.
And here are a few cool tips from some professional staging. To remove sink odors, it is also a good idea to grind half a lemon in the garbage disposal. While you could use a spray to deodorize your home, it might give it a cheap, institutional bathroom smell, which is hardly the image you’re going for. If you are a smoker and normally smoke indoors, start limiting your smoking outside the home and taking additional steps to deodorize indoors. Lastly, do not forget to remove the trash.
3. Defining the Rooms
Another area forgetting to stage when it comes to selling their Greeley Colorado houses is, well, all the important rooms when it comes to “defining” them. Ensuring that each room has a single, defined, and easily identify purpose is critical to allowing potential buyers to see how the square footage of your home can be maximized.
4. Wallpaper
The wallpaper is a frequently forgotten aspect. Buyers will not like your wallpaper more often than not. So taking it down and painting the walls instead is the safest course. And don’t try to paint over the wallpaper–it never looks good and sends the buyer a signal that the appearance of the home doesn’t matter to you.
And don’t use bright, garish colors when you paint walls. To achieve the blank canvas effect we mentioned above, use neutral tones and shades. You don’t want the walls to look soft, but you want an inviting, homey feeling to strive for.
5. Flooring
The floor is definitely one of the areas where sellers forget to stage their Greeley Colorado houses when they sell. They may recall the stained and stinky carpet being cleaned or replaced. But with linoleum and wood flooring that’s not so much the case. Rest assured, however, that buyers will inspect floors carefully.
Major rooms such as the kitchen, dining room, bathroom and living room should be your focus on floors. Replace torn linoleum, finish hard wood floors and replace tiles in the bathrooms (or at least replenish them).
6. Lighting
In every area, lighting is another area that sellers often forget to include in their efforts at staging. First of all, this means making the most of the natural light of your home, and that means making sure that the windows are clean and not darkened by heavy drapes or blinds.
7. The Exterior
Also, the exterior is one of the areas where sellers forget to stage when selling their Greeley Colorado houses for the simple reason that they are so caught up in the interior staging. But the exterior and curb appeal are absolutely critical–because they create the all-important first impression you never get to make another chance.
Consult Your Agent
However, these are just some of the areas that sellers forget to stage when they sell their Greeley Colorado houses. And that’s why you probably shouldn’t try to do it all on your own if you don’t have some experience in this area. You can hire professional stagers or consult with your experienced local real estate agent. Your agent is happy to guide you through the process of staging.