One of the potentially most expensive aspects of selling your home is setting up the stage for showing it. These 11 tips will help you budget properly, while making a great impression!
1. Lighting
Perhaps the most important aspect of showing your home will be lighting. It's the first thing a person feels when they come into a room, the first thing they notice. Lighting in a home can effect the way a person feels, at a core level, and so pay attention to where improvements can be made when showing your home. Having good blinds on the windows can make a huge difference, as well as lighting throughout the house. Good lighting can make a home feel bigger, look cleaner, and have an overall positive effect.
2. Involve an Expert
Do you have a friend who does interior design? Is your realtor experienced at selling homes? Ask for help! A realtor or interior designer will know how to lay out and stage your home properly, what to include, and how to set it all up to sell. Most experts will tell you to only furnish basic rooms, like the living room, dining room, and family room. A general rule of thumb is to keep bedrooms vacant, and bathrooms, etc. The simpler the layout, the better.
3. Storage Unit
Storage units can be expensive, depending on the size of storage you need, but they may be worth the investment to de-clutter your home and make it buy-able. These days there are alternative options than traditional storage units, you can send your things away to websites like Clutter.com, which will take your things and store them for you as long as you want. There is also Makespace.com, which does the same thing, except they send you boxes to pack up and they pick them up for you. If you need anything back, they'll send it right back.
4. Slipcovers for Old Furniture
One of the least expensive makeovers for an old couch is a slipcover. You can find generic ones at IKEA for as little as $20, and it makes a big difference in the look and feel of your home. Slip a cover over old chairs and couches, and if you have a beat up table, a simple tablecloth does wonders!
5. Accent Walls
Most realtors will recommend a home with light, neutral colors. While this is great advice, adding a pop of color on one accent wall can do wonders to modernize a place, giving it a playful yet distinguished look. A small can of paint for an accent wall can be as low as $15, which is an inexpensive way to make your home stand out from the rest.
6. Heighten the Ceiling
Ceiling height can be a huge selling point for home-buyers, but not all homes have this benefit. There are ways to draw the eye, vertically speaking, and some of those include: adding floor-length drapes, tall vases with 6-foot branches or floral, strings of light that span vertically. All these methods can create the illusion of tall ceilings, and are generally inexpensive. Window treatments are super cheap at IKEA, starting at around $29.99.
7. New Linens in Bedrooms
If you do furnish a bedroom for a staging, purchase new linens for the bed -- this can be easily done purchasing a bed-in-a-bag kit from a discount store like Ross or TJ Maxx, or even Target. The sheets in the kit can double as curtains, so you've got two things accomplished in a pinch!
8. Bathroom Make-Over
A great way to liven up an outdated bathroom: replace faucets with more modern ones, paint cabinets, and replace the shower curtain with something light and airy. These quick fixes make a huge improvement on old bathrooms, and will give it an edge.
9. Thrifting and Yard Sales
To add another piece of furniture, try going to a thrift store or yard sale. Sometimes you can find priceless pieces that will add a huge amount of class and style to a room. Don't spend too much money on anything though, unless you plan to reuse it in your own future home.
10. Get Rid of Outdated Decor
It's more important to have no decor than the wrong decor. Anything older or out of touch will make your home feel outdated, even if its a newer house. Eliminate anything that falls into that category -- less is more when it comes to modern design.
11. Fresh is Best
Fresh-cut flowers, bowls of fruit, and house plants always make a lovely, homey impression for potential home buyers. It is said that house plants improve the environmental feel of home a great deal, just like lighting, so invest in a few charming house plants! Having something living in your home environment will plant the idea of zest and vigor in the minds of the viewers.