Staging and Preparing a House to Sell: Your Guide to Making it Work

There is more involved in selling a home than simply listing it and waiting.  Like anything, the house must be shown in the best possible way so that visitors will want to purchase it.  There are several things that go into staging and preparing a house so that it will sell quickly, including repairs, cleaning and arranging so that everything is perfect in the eyes of the potential homebuyer.

Repairs:

Repairs are a large part of staging a home. You don’t want anything to take away from the beauty and charm of your home – and that means broken door handles, cracked tiles, holes, or any other kind of eyesore.  Make all of those repairs before having any visitors.  You’d be surprised to know that even one small crack or hole can stop a potential homebuyer from making the deal.

According to HomeGain 2009, just repairing problems with floors can increase the sale price between $1500 and $2000, and 91% of agents recommend that this is done before a showing.  Go through the house and check for any other minor repairs that need to be done – such as sticking drawers, leaky faucets or drafty windows.

Cleaning:

It’s important for the house to sparkle when potential homebuyers visit; both inside and out.  Start on the outside, and try to see the house as a potential homebuyer would.  Is the brick or siding clean?  If not, a pressure wash would help. Is the lawn free of trash? Are the outside windows sparkling and clean?  Take care of any problems on the outside before moving on to the inside.

On the inside, obvious cleaning should be done – like the cleaning you do everyday.  This might include having all of the dishes washed and put away, making sure the floors are vacuumed, swept and mopped, and dusting everything.  However, before showing the house, you’ll want to do some deep and detail cleaning on the inside so that everything looks great.  This might include:

• Wiping out the insides of cabinets and drawers.
• Dusting baseboards.
• Scrubbing bathroom and kitchen tile and porcelain.
• Organizing closets, pantries and linen closets to show more functionality and space.
• Straightening things to provide a more uniform look – such as making sure all the coffee mug handles go the same   way, organizing the contents of cabinets and making sure everything looks neat and tidy.
• Washing the insides of the windows.
• Polishing the steel of sink handles and faucets, towel bars, etc.
• Etc.

Have a friend walk through the house with you when you’ve finished to see if they can spot anything else that needs to be done.  When the house is as clean as possible, you’ll have a better chance of making a sale.  In fact, HomeGain 2009 says cleaning an de-cluttering is recommended by 98% of agents and can bring an extra $1500 to $2000 to the sale price.

Staging:

For the actual staging, it’s important to set things up the best possible way to get potential homebuyers picturing themselves living there.  There are more than a few ways to do this. The first would be to remove anything that does not absolutely need to be there.  This includes personal items.  So, the personal products from the bathroom counters and medicine cabinets should be stored in baskets under the sink.  Pictures should be removed from the walls and stored somewhere else. No drawings or personal saying should be left on the refrigerator or anywhere else.

De-personalize the house so that it becomes a blank canvas for the potential homebuyers to imagine themselves there.  If you have too many personal items, it will seem crowded and the canvas will already be painted on.  You should have as little furniture as possible in each room as well.  This helps the home look more spacious and inviting, while a small amount of furniture allows potential homebuyers to know exactly what a particular room is for.

By staging and preparing the house the proper way, you will not only increase your chances of selling the house quickly, but you may increase your sale price as well.

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