Life is messy, with some kids, a dog or two, is ain’t pretty. Hi I am Gay Mc Clelland, a realtor with Century 21 John T. Ferreira on Fernandina Beach Florida.
If there is one thing I’ve learned about selling a house, it’s staging is really, really important. One of the first things you need to do after you list your house with your friendly realtor is stage your home.
Now, I am not talking about Hollywood when you bring in furniture and curtains and lights and repaint in the wallpaper. I am talking about consolidating your kid’s toy in one area. I am talking about packing up all the things you really, really don’t have to live with it. Put them in boxes, put them in the garage, better yet put them in your mother’s garage and you are moving anyway, get rid of that stuff.
Go through your closet, go through things in your closet, donate those clothes to charity now. You want those linens be gone. So this closet will be big and open like there’s lots of room. Another good thing to do, when you are staging your home is remove your family photo. People tend to fall in love with your three-year old. Yes she is precious. But sure not selling her with the house, she didn’t come with that house. We need to get rid of all those photos. People tend to think of home in terms of, “Is that a house with a really cute three-year old or with the twins of the house?” You want to say “No, it was the house with great counter and a great backyard.”
After you have your house under control, is that ever really possible. You want to make a list of showing instructions and they should be very simple, common-sense instruction—“Open the blind, turn on the lights, hide the laundry.” A good way of hiding laundry—put laundry in the laundry basket, and put the towel over it and shove it at to back of the closet.
Drain boards on the counter—people tend to think that your dishwasher doesn’t work. Now, you and I know that maybe it is a baby bottle in there a couple of cups is not worth running the dishwasher for. But the drain board on the counter says dishwasher doesn’t work. Also dirty dishes, you can put them in the stove. People very rarely open a stove when you’re walking through a house. Laundry, if you got a really lot of laundry, shove it in the dryer, people don’t look in the dryer.
These are little things that you need to put on your list to show. When you finish your list, put it on the inside of the kitchen cabinet door. This way when you are at work and the realtor calls to show your house with an hour, your teenager or your husband can open up the door, read the list check it off and have your house show perfect.
Taking empty house is a lot easier, so flowers tend to look great in the dinning room. Pretty towels, a silk robe, remember the one your mother-in-law gave you, perfects up the bathroom. You know, have fun in the kitchen, use so cute espresso cup, the cook books you never use but are too good to throw away, put those out as props before you leave the house. It makes the house look warm and inviting. It give us the sense of someone living there. It also adds interest and people feel like, “I want to go in the next room and see what that room looks like and what does she put in there?” Shopping bags in the closet with a little tissue paper, people will relate to that. They see that we shop at the same shop. It makes them feel at home in your house. These are sub-conscious clues as to “This is the house that fit the new buyer’s life style.”
Staging shows your house to full of potential to potential buyer. I am Gay Mc Clelland and thank you fro sharing the moment with me.
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