Staging your home = Selling your home!

The house should feel like you could live there but look like no one does.

This cabbage patch doll is hands down the strangest thing I have ever seen while walking through a house for sale -- THIS is a perfect example of bad staging!  My hope, is that they were trying to pack, realized she didn’t fit in the bag and gave up. They didn’t think people would be coming by to see the house, but people did and this is my point…a seller must always have their home ready to show!

Now you probably won’t find a cabbage patch doll being suffocated in a plastic bag at most homes you walk through but you would be amazed how often I walk into a house and find little chachkies EVERYWHERE, or books & paperwork scattered about.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like these people are living in filth.  It’s just day to day clutter that comes from living your life, but that’s not what you want to present to people when they are looking to buy your home.  Shove it in boxes and cram it under the bed, but get all the clutter out of sight!

You want potential buyers to be able to walk in and feel like they could see themselves living there and to do this it needs to feel spacious, clean and uncluttered.  Your Realtor (me) can always give you advice on what to remove and what to keep but here are a couple useful tips:  Start by taking all the personal items out of the house -- bye-bye framed family photos & hello non-descript art from Home Goods.  If you have big furniture that overtakes the room, remove as much of it as possible -- You don’t want someone walking away because they don’t feel like there’s enough room for their furniture.     

Now the hard part:  Once you get everything perfect, keep it that way!  I know, I know, it’s a total pain to clean the house everyday so that it’s ready at a moment’s notice for potential buyers -- but it’s necessary! Remember staging your home = selling your home! 

As always, if you or someone you know is looking to buy or sell a home in Tallahassee or anywhere else– Call me at (850) 294-7058 or shoot me an e-mail at CorinneJohnston@KW.com I’d love to help you!