When a buyer considers purchasing a home, they usually sit with a Realtor and discuss their options. After getting pre-approved for a mortgage, a buyer then decides where to buy a home and for how much! Once a price point and an area of the city is established, the buyer is ready to start “shopping”. Why should the buyer be interested in your home? What reasons would a buyer choose your home?
Your home will sell for one of two reasons:
- The buyer falls in love with your home and can totally envision themselves living there.
- The buyer likes the price of your home and they see a bargain that they cannot pass up.
Which buyer would you rather deal with? The one who loves your home and is willing to pay a premium to take ownership of it, or the buyer who is looking for a deal, and your home seems like it’s listed at a great price that they can negotiate down even further?
If you deal with the latter, it will cost you big time! In a buyer’s market, the choices are many and it is not uncommon for buyers to make offers at 6% or more below the asking price. On a $500,000 home, that is roughly $30,000 off the asking price! In a buyer’s market there is little room for the seller to negotiate.
So what can you do to turn the odds in your favour?
When someone is looking to purchase a home, they want a home that fits their needs. They will keep looking until they find a home they fall in love with. It will be a home they envision themselves living in. That is difficult to do when there are photos and personal items everywhere. What can you do?
Home Organization Can Leave You With A Well-Presented Home – That Sells Faster!
Make sure you declutter, organize, clean and stage your home before you list it. When you complete all these steps, you are creating a beautiful space that will have visual appeal to the masses. A well-presented home will add a positive vibe to the psychological state of mind of a potential buyer. Buyers are more likely to fall in love with your home and NOT with the price. You don’t want your home to look like a “bargain hunter special”.
Important tips for the home seller, before potential buyers start viewing your home:
- Declutter: This will help you to create an environment that is spacious, open, and pleasing to the eye. Make the house as neutral and depersonalized as possible by removing all pictures and personal / sentimental items.
- Home Organization: Edit the place and ensure all the accessories have a proper place. Create a purpose for each room. Ensure each room is laid out properly for the photo shoot, showings and the open house.
- Home Cleaning: Your home should be spotless from top to bottom. Ensure your kitchen appliances are streak free and shining, your bathroom sinks, toilets, tubs and showers are clean and odour free, your windows are clean inside and out, all the furniture is dust free and floors are properly mopped and vacuumed. It is always a good idea to ensure your carpets are washed to give them the renewed appearance as well.
- Stage: Use the furniture you have, but make sure that each room is set to impress. Staging is not necessarily about making spaces functional but rather about making them appear stylish. For example: if you watch TV in the living room, this may surprise you, but it is always advisable to remove the TV from the main living room and make it into a sitting / family friendly area instead. TV is often seen as a distraction and an eye sore for the average buyer. Designate the room in the basement, or the bonus room as a TV room instead. Remove excess couches, chairs, unnecessary shelves, storage cabinets and dressers to give each room the appearance of extra space. Add décor such as ornaments and silk plants in living areas and bathrooms to bring them to live, use colorful toss cushions and fuzzy blankets on couches and beds to add color to a bland space. Don’t overdo it, striking the balance between bare and over-cluttered is a fine art.
- Scent: Before a scheduled showing for potential buyers, add essential oils to your humidifier or diffuser to spread a pleasant aroma throughout the house. Don’t have any essential oils? Here’s an even better idea. Bake a batch of cookies 2 hours before the showing. The aroma from the oven will spread throughout the house, and the smell will be hypnotising to most people’s senses. Leave the freshly baked cookies outside for everyone to try, and they will feel right at home when they tour your house. Bake only nut-free cookies, as you never know if the guests have allergies.
- Leave: Be sure to leave your house before the scheduled visitors arrive. You don’t want them to feel like they are strangers intruding on your private place. Rather, you want them to feel like guests in a retreat, allowing them to contemplate if they love this place so much, they might want to stay just a bit longer. Who knows, maybe they like this place so much, they might actually want to buy it!
And that is how you get your home sold!
If you are considering selling your home in the near future, don’t hesitate to give us a call. Along with home staging, we also offer professional organizing and cleaning services, so you can be sure no details get missed before your home is listed. Until next time…
