Jackie & John MacDonald Real Estate Update

There are many shows on TV right now about home staging and how to sell your home quickly and for top dollar.  The home staging business is booming, and there are many local home stagers available to do everything from helping you de-clutter and rearrange the furniture you already have to providing you with new interior decorating and rental furniture for a stunning show home look.  Feel free to contact me for referrals of local home stagers or to ask any questions you may have.

If you want to give your home a facelift on a budget, here are my top suggestions to have your home appeal to the most buyers and increase your odds of a quicker sale!

• First, have the right attitude about staging your home to appeal to the masses.  You might need to tone down your personal sense of style to make your home more marketable.  This can be hard for some people, but try to remember, you aren't planning on living in your home much longer anyway, so catering to your own tastes isn't the priority.  Let your own tastes loose in your new home, not in the one you're trying to sell.
• De-cluttering is the best and cheapest way to make your home look better!  You're moving soon anyway, so start packing!  I use the rule of 1/3: take a third of your stuff and pack it away.  That includes clothes, books, closet contents, storage items, display items, cabinet contents, toys, and any other knicknacks or items taking up your storage space or sitting out on surfaces or tables. 
• You still need to live in your home for a few months, so I understand you can't go crazy in this department, but potential buyers need to see SPACE for their belongings in your home.  If they open a closet and it is bulging out at them with your overstuffed clutter, they will start to see the home as not having enough room for them either.
• Take down family photos, or pare them down to a minimum.  Buyers want to see themselves in the home, not be reminded at every turn about you being there.  Consider replacing family photos with tasteful modern art easily found at stores like Home Sense.
• Clean, clean and clean some more.  Nothing is more of a turnoff than the smell of dirty litterboxes, sour laundry, or the sight of hairballs on the carpet, smears on the walls and doors, and scum in the bathroom.  If cleaning isn't your thing, there are many housekeepers available for less than $20 an hour - check out craigslist!  When you leave each day for work, just do a quick 10 minute tidy in case of showings that day.  They're bound to happen, so it's best to be prepared every day for potential buyers to be in your home.
• Keep surfaces like tables and counters clear of clutter, appliances and other items, especially in the kitchen.  Bare counters, except for a few well placed items like a fruit bowl and a shiny mixer or a bouquet of flowers make your kitchen look bigger and cleaner!
• Fix things that are broken and can be easily noticed like burnt out bulbs, broken faceplates or light switches, doorknobs that are loose, and cabinet hardware that is loose or missing.
• If you're feeling like a bit more of a project, the biggest bang for your buck is PAINT.  However, a bad paint job is very noticeable. 90% of the job should be the preparation: fill holes and dings with a product like dry dex or poly fill, sand the fill, wipe the walls down, and do a proper job priming and painting with 2 coats of quality paint in a neutral colour.  Make sure to properly tape off and drop cloth the surrounding area to avoid splattering your ceiling or floors.  PLEASE resist the urge to do strong colours.  It may be appealing to some, but you want to appeal to as many people as possible and make your home look as large as you can.  Stick to neutrals!!!
• If you have overstuffed furniture or large sectionals, try to take at least one piece out of the room to make it look bigger.
• Ask a friend or two with a good sense of style to walk through your house as a buyer and give you their honest opinions on what should stay and what should go.

If you can manage to follow even some of the suggestions above, you will be making your home more attractive to potential buyers and hopefully get a quicker sale and a better price than someone who doesn't bother to make their home more appealing.

Visit my website at http://www.jackiemacdonald.com for more resources and links on home improvement, or contact me anytime for advice.