The Importance of Staging and Curb Appeal

As homeowners we are generally quite proud of our décor and how we have customized our houses to make them our own unique homes. However, not all buyers will feel the same way about your design and personal touches. That is why it’s so important to make sure you stage your house with the buyer in mind.

Buyers want to envision themselves in the space so it truly feels like it could be their own. They need to see themselves inside with their furniture and keepsakes – not your pictures and decorations. Stage, clean, and declutter so they can visualize their own dreams as they walk through each room.

Walk outside, take a deep breath, then walk through your front door as if you were a home buyer seeing it for the first time.  What is the first thing that catches your eye?  Is it an unobstructed view out the back windows overlooking your beautiful back yard or that very expensive and extremely ornate floor lamp next to your easy chair which is also right in front of the window?

Go online and look at pictures of homes currently on the market.  Notice how much larger and fresher rooms appear when there is less furniture and décor. Pay attention to how sleek and inviting a kitchen looks when there is almost nothing on the counter tops vs the ones with cannisters, mixers, coffee makers and junior’s artwork all over the refrigerator.  Pay attention to how distracting small rugs on the kitchen, hall and bathroom floors are.  Large area rugs are great, but small rugs that dot the floor translate into busy photos that will not properly represent the space. There are three easy rules to remember when staging a home.  1) Pull back the drapes, open the blinds and let the light in; 2) If you can live without it until the house sells, put it in storage and 3) LESS IS MORE.

While neutral interior colors are a safe bet, you can afford to be a little bolder outside.  Strong pops of color can be a very good thing. According to a recent poll by Zillow, homes with black or charcoal gray front doors are selling for more than some of the more traditional colors and while TCU purple or UT orange are probably not a good idea for a front door, red is still a very popular choice for making a strong first impression. In your landscaping, you can never go wrong with color in your plants and flowers, even purple and orange, LOL. Creating good curb appeal is critical, perhaps more important than staging, because you must get people in the front door before they can see what a great job you did inside.  So, make sure the lawn is green and well maintained, trim up the tress and plant some flowers.  It can make a world of difference in how long you are on the market and how much your home sells for.

If you have questions about staging, inside or outside, please feel free to give us a call at 817-219-0456 or visit us only at www.WeSellGranbury.com.  We would love to answer your questions because “We Love to Talk About Real Estate”.