PUBLISHED January 21, 2021
By Alice Robertson
When you’ve decided it’s time to sell your home, the last thing you want to experience is a lengthy listing period or even find yourself in a position to decrease your price. To avoid this scenario, you want to make your home stand out from the competition so you can maximize your return. Cleaning, staging and decluttering your home are a few of the essential steps you can take to ensure your home is in showing condition. Remember, the first impression makes a lasting impression!
Declutter
You can transform your home into an entirely different space by merely decluttering and organizing. Decluttering can be tackled in stages, room by room, or all at once. Donate or sell duplicate items you have and anything you haven’t used in the last year that’s practical.
Unused and lightly worn clothing can be donated or sold as well. If you no longer want or use something that’s taking up unnecessary space, toss it. Anything you can’t seem to part with because of use or sentimental value can go to storage.
Keep the day-to-day things you need handy, and organize what remains. Everything else should go. Pack up your books, movies, CDs and family photos for safekeeping. By winnowing down the items you decide to keep out and organizing what’s left, it will be much easier to prepare for showings when the time comes.
As a reminder, you don’t want to shove everything you put away into a closet. Potential buyers will open every door and drawer they can, so don’t neglect organization in these often-overlooked places.
Depersonalize
In addition to decluttering and organizing, you should be removing all personal items as well. By depersonalizing your home, you turn it into a more neutral setting for potential buyers, which is the simplest way to help others imagine living there.
Ideally, you want to find the right balance of warmth and neutrality. You can achieve this by removing family photos and trophies while adding touches of color with throw pillows, accent rugs or even flowers. Brightening a room with small details truly goes a long way. Remember, buying a home is a financial and emotional investment, and buyers want to feel like the home they’re investing in has been home to a “happy family,” according to Hudson Valley magazine.
Hire a Professional Stager or Stage It Yourself
As you stage your home, remember that furniture layout is essential to your home presentation. You want to avoid having your furniture overpower the space or take up too much room. A beautifully staged home enhances a space’s features while maintaining a sense of order and neutrality.
If your furniture isn’t ideal for staging, you can always put it in storage and rent out furniture for the duration of your listing. Most buyers form an opinion about a home within the first 7-10 seconds of arriving, so having the right staging to make that perfect first impression is essential. As the saying goes, you don’t get a second chance at making a great first impression.
If you’re at a loss on ways to stage your home, take the time to attend a handful of open houses yourself to see what works and what doesn’t. You can also look online at other Denver listings comparable to yours to see how they’ve staged the property. What did they leave behind or get rid of in their home? Is their closet organized with stylish bins? How did they add warmth?
There’s nothing wrong with scouting out other homes since every home offers something unique to buyers, and you can give yourself an edge by preparing for the best listing photos possible, ensuring a more successful open house.
It takes some elbow grease to prep a home for sale, but it doesn’t happen overnight. By tackling clutter and implementing some organization, you can turn your Colorado home into a listing sensation.
