If you’re getting ready to sell your Seattle home, you probably already know the essential staging tips: deep clean, de-personalize, and de-clutter. This will help prevent any potential red flags from popping up in the minds of buyers, such as a grimy bathroom wall or dirty kitchen countertops.
Professional staging companies take that concept one step further by creating an environment that allows prospective buyers to visualize themselves living in your home. They do this through special techniques and staging tricks that can help persuade a potential buyer to make up their minds and buy.
Here are five great tips on how you can stage your Seattle house to help get your asking price and sell it faster:
Clean Inside and Out
The outside of your house is the first thing prospective buyers see when pulling up to your driveway. Unkept lawns, missing roof shingles, and weeds growing in the cracks of the walkways don’t make a good first impression. In fact, if the outside of your house looks dirty or unkempt, it sets a negative tone in the minds of many buyers, which carries on when they set foot through your front door.
Deep cleaning the inside of your house is important as well—especially if you have pets. Some people are very sensitive to the natural smells that dogs and cats give off. A professional carpet cleaner and a fresh coat of wall paint can help get rid of offensive odors that might deter a potential buyer.
Create More Space
One of the first things a prospective home buyer looks for is storage space. Closets and other storage areas that are filled to the brim with clothes, boxes, and other items can make the available space look smaller than it really is. Try to remove as much clutter from these areas as possible. You might even have to temporarily rent a storage unit.
The garage is another area where people often store the majority of their stuff. Clear out bicycles, boxes, and move vehicles to the street so people can get a good idea of exactly how much space they’ll have to work with if they buy your home. You can also rent a power washer to help get rid of years of oil stains on the garage floor.
Don’t Get Too Sterile
While sterilizing the inside of your house is an integral part of staging, there comes a point when it goes from clean and sterile to barren looking. This especially holds true for the kitchen area. Try to add a few décor elements to the kitchen countertops such as a cookie jar, new toaster, or various jars to hold cooking utensils.
If you don’t want to hire a professional staging company, you can add a few pieces of furniture such as barstools, chairs, and a dining room table to liven the area up. It’s often hard for people to visualize what the kitchen area could look like when there’s nothing there. This is why various accoutrements, such as small flowerpots, can help add to the overall ambiance.
Choose Your Paint Colors Wisely
Many studies have been performed by various academic institutions that show colors play a vital role in the psychology of marketing. This holds especially true when it comes time to repaint the interior walls of your home. Try to stick to neutral colors and avoid alarming ones, such as red or blue. Even though the color grey might be en vogue, chances are not everyone will like it.
The best colors to paint or repaint the interior of your home are white and beige—with beige being a genuinely neutral color. These two colors have been shown to have a positive effect on human emotion and allow people to concentrate much easier. No matter where a prospective home buyer is standing in your home, the color of your walls will always be in the background—and influencing their mood.
Take Advantage of Natural Light
Studies have shown that natural light increases serotonin production in the brain.
This is why you should open your windows and blinds to let in as much natural light as possible. It will create feelings of openness and can help make a smaller room seem bigger than it actually is.
One trick that professional stagers use is to accentuate a big living room window by centering furniture around it so that it becomes a conversation piece. If your home has small windows, you can hang a mirror directly across from your biggest window. The light will reflect off of the mirror and scatter throughout the room.
Appeal to Both Sexes
If the current décor of your house is overtly masculine or feminine, you could inadvertently turn away 50% of potential buyers. This especially holds true for the master bedroom and bathroom. They should appeal to both sexes, and you can accomplish this by getting rid of various features that might seem too gender-specific. Neutral color walls, matching bedding, and various accessories that complement the color scheme tend to work best when “de-genderizing” a room.
Seattle Realtor Scott Haveson
Even if you don’t plan on hiring a professional stager, it’s important to take into consideration the above five elements that can help steer the decision-making process of potential buyers. My name is Scott Haveson, and I have helped countless Seattle residents buy and sell their homes. If you’re looking for more tips on how to stage your home, or are ready to put it on the market, give me a call at (206) 953-8311 or contact me via email.
