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Looking for home staging tips to sell your home in Houston? Here are 20 useful ideas to increase your sell price!
You’re planning on selling your home in Houston and you want to secure its worth. Realize that staging your home is one way to accomplish its sale. Real estate statistics prove that a staged home is one that sells faster. In fact, many realtors say that staging boosts the value of a home between 1-10 percent.
Before you go through your house trying to rearrange things, you want to focus on staging rooms that will bring the most impact in swaying potential buyers. Rooms in a home that bring importance include the
• Kitchen
• Living Room
• Master Bedroom
With a kitchen being one of the top spaces that attract potential homebuyers, staging should be attractive and interesting.
Fresh baked muffins or cookies tempt just about anyone, as do irresistible kitchen scents. Other physical attributes that garner attention include freshly painted kitchen walls, classic kitchen backsplashes, open shelving and coordinated stainless steel or dark hued appliances.
Ridding your home of clutter is very important. Clutter occupies space. Any added space that is cleared is important in selling your home. A home appears larger when you whittle down areas to only the basics.
From there, pack away what you don’t need and only keep daily essentials. Most interested buyers will open any closet areas to look for added storage. You’ll want to remove as many non-essential items as possible so you can create closet appeal that includes added space.
You’ve seen the holes, nicks, chips, scratches and scuffs in your home and know they need attention. When staging your home is in the works, there’s no time like the present to repair and fix anything suspect in your home.
It’s important to attend to minor details as once again you can impress potential buyers with attention to property upkeep.
Use spackle, drywall compound and caulk to fill any imperfections. You may need to touch up with paint as well. Just watch for any unforeseen areas that need help. Again, you want to show perspective buyers that you maintain your property and want it to look consistently nice.
With home staging you want the prospective buyer to visualize the space personally. The quickest way to do that is to create areas devoid of anything personal. You want to convince a potential buyer that they can make the space their own.
You also want to keep any other personal objects and toiletry items put away. It may be difficult to live in a depersonalized space, but it makes it easier for a buyer to make the association with living in your home.
You can make a difference in selling your home if you eliminate bright and bold colors on walls. It may be what you like but a perspective buyer will probably not. Bright colors are distracting and rarely fit in with what a buyer is looking for in a home. Paint over intense colors with neutral paint such as white, gray or beige.
The front entrance of a home is usually the first thing a potential buyer will see. You want to make a memorable first impression. To do that, eliminate anything to do with seasonal decorations. Second, power wash or scrub the front porch area. Add a nice front door mat and plants. Keep the area simple but approachable to buyers.
Freshness in a home comes down to placing plants and fragrant flowers in strategic locations. They lift and refresh an area and bring an air of brightness to a room.
Place green plants or flowers in areas where potential buyers will notice them. A kitchen or dining room table could use a large vase of flowers in the middle.
Potted plants or succulents would be perfect in a tray on a living room coffee table. You can place larger plants in corners or other spots in a living room. If there is no time to care for plants, faux plants will work just as well.
Brighten rooms in your house by allowing as much light as possible into dark areas. Open window blinds and turn on overhead lights, closet lights and lamps in every room. It not only brings a welcoming presence to a home but light highlights every space.
One of the key aspects of staging is opening up space. Rearranging furniture and other items in a house can free up areas and allow for walkable space. Potential buyers can easily maneuver around rooms and picture their furniture and personal items in each area.
Any furniture that is overly large, damaged or unmatched you should move to storage. Only leave workable pieces. Rearrange what’s left in a uniform pattern. Keep furniture away from walls and pair items such as chairs, end tables, and sofas. You want to create an air of spaciousness and an area where conversations can occur.
Selling your home involves not only staging the interior, but uplifting the exterior as well. It will intrigue anyone driving by your home with how it looks on the outside. If it has appeal, they’ll be interested in looking further inside. If you want interested buyers, be sure to consider more than just interior staging. Your backyard can add tremendous interest to your home if correctly executed. Think about
• Staining or redoing the front porch
• Washing windows in the front
• Washing house siding and paths
• Weeding and mowing lawns and trimming shrubs
• Mounting new house numbers and new front area lighting
• Pruning existing plants and vegetation
• Planting both flowers and plant
• Touching up paint where needed
Dining rooms, bathrooms and other areas require inexpensive touches. You can enhance a bare dining room with smaller and simpler plants or decorative pieces down the middle of the table while you can make over a bathroom quickly with stick on tiles, peg towel holders, painted cabinets, apothecary jars, potted plants, baskets, fluffy white towels and candle arrangements.
The same can be true of a smaller bedroom. Use a double or twin bed and arrange it in the center of the wall so it’s opposite the entryway. Enhance the bed with a comforter, pillows, and decorative throw. Add a night table, lamp and small chair to complete the look.
One of the first things a potential buyer sees is the floors in your home. If there is any question about the cleanliness of them, clean them. Shampoo or steam clean carpets. You should probably refinish wood flooring in awful shape but if you don’t want to go that route because of the expense, place area rugs where you can.
If you want people to notice the potential in your home, replace personal pictures with scenic landscapes or landmarks of the area. You want any perspective buyer to imagine what kind of pictures they would put on bare walls.
When you want to impress a buyer with added storage space, open up your closets and reveal even more space as you know they’ll look, anyway. Having extra room through any closets is a huge selling point. If you have to clear out every closet, and store whatever is in there, do it. Shoot for a percentage of open space in every closet to project the idea of more space.
If new furniture pieces are beyond your budget, possibly rent a few pieces or simply add slipcovers to a worn out sofa or chair. Add some colorful pillows to finish the look. While furniture can be one of the more expensive home staging tips, it can also make a big impact if done correctly.
A garage with free standing or built in industrial shelving is one way to add lots of useable storage space to a home and allow for storage of any excess clutter from a home’s interior. You want shelving standardized in size for a neat appearance and easy placement and retrieval of storage boxes.
Create a living space in the backyard patio area with outdoor furniture grouping and add mats or outdoor area rugs. This is another space that you can take advantage of with staging while showcasing an additional living area. If you have a pool, make sure it is clean and place planter boxes with real or faux plants in key locations. If you’re looking for ideas, you can check out the most recent home listings in Houston with a swimming pool.
When you know potential buyers will arrive for a showing, allow those few spare minutes to complete your staging efforts. Allow fresh air into the house for a few minutes. It should be clear and with no stagnant air. Light a candle or two in soft fragrances, put out some fresh flowers in lovely containers and add fresh towels in bathroom spaces.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money in staging a home. Look at the ideas presented here and use what you can to make your home open and attractive, plus give it added value. Just remember that real estate statistics show that staging is beneficial for selling your home. You’ll attract buyers through staging and the right buyer is just waiting to see what you’ve done. Please let us know if you have more questions, our team of friendly real estate agents in Houston are happy to help with home staging ideas!