My favorite story to illustrate the importance of properly preparing, is our daughter's experience when selling her car.

She caught the bug of selling her car and took it to a large car resale market. She went straight from school, showing her car As-Is. Needless to say that her car looked like a teenager's room-on-wheels. Hence, the offer was an insulting $800.

After removing an enormous amount of personal items (school books, clothing, water bottles, etc.) and detailing her car inside and out, she took it to the same place. Low and behold, the value grew by $1,400.

This goes to show that a bit of elbow grease will have a high rate of return and the same applies to our homes.  

• clean it up
• make it shine
• remove the clutter
• pack your collections of CDs, DVDs, trophies, etc. often perceived as clutter
• de-personalize by e.g. removing photographs

Home buyers are looking for space:

• on counters in kitchen and bathrooms
• in closets
• in garage and basement

Before putting your home on the market, ask your Realtor® to evaluate your home's strong and weak points. As a trained Staging Realtor® I work with a detailed checklist to help you with your To-Do-List.

It is best to prepare your property BEFORE your home is listed on the MLS search engines, before any agent or prospecting buyer see it. And, believe it or not, before the appraiser comes. The old adage that 'you only have one chance to make a first impression' is particularly true for home sales.

It has been proven over and over again that staged homes sell faster and at a better price. Every home seller when in a buyer's market should consider consulting a professional stager or hire a staging Realtor®

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