Staging Your Home

How do you answer the following:

1. Does your house make a good visual impression from the street? Is the lawn trimmed? Are bikes, gardening equipment, dead plants removed? Do you have colorful flowers? Is the driveway sweep clean? Is the paint fresh (especially, by the front entry) Is the back yard inviting or something to avoid?

2. How do each of the rooms inside the house look? A Buyer will avoid a home with lots of "stuff" in many of the rooms. Is the kitchen crowded, closets full or bathroom counter tops full? If you answer, yes to many of these questions - you may wish to consider renting some off-site storage space to remove the extra furniture and "stuff" away from the home. Renting space may the cheapest investment you make.

3. Have any leaky faucets, walls with lots of finger prints, burnt out lightbulbs, cracked or painted shut windows, exposed wiring, etc. Many of these items will come up again at the inspection report obtained by the Buyer, why not correct these items prior to letting the Buyers visit the house the first time? The fewer of these items there are, the better the impression to a Buyer, that the Home has had good care taken of it.

4. Many Buyers are extremely sensitive to offensive odors. Ask a friend with a sensitive nose, to give you an objective "smell test". If they find it noticeable, you may wish to consider eliminating the problem before buyers visit the home.

5. Decorate the dining room table with your best dishes, hang the best guest towels in the bathrooms, have all the rooms well lit, make you house as inviting as possible.