Super Bowl Weekend traditionally marks the start of the Spring Buying Season in real estate. Anecdotally, real estate agents will tell you that buyer activity tends to tick higher at this time of the year.
Meanwhile, with mortgage rates still trolling near all-time lows and Congress debating a first-time homebuyer tax credit, 2009 may bring out even more buyers than we’ve seen in the past.
Just having your home on the market may not be enough to attract an offer, though — the home has to have appeal. That brings us to home staging — the process by which a homeowner re-organizes and re-presents his home to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.
Home staging is part-science, part-art, and part-psychology. Homebuyers tend to judge homes within the first 8 seconds of seeing them so making a quality first impression can mean the difference between getting multiple bids, and just getting a lot of foot traffic.
The 4-minute video gives some quick-and-easy tips, including:
- Create more light in the home
- Clean up the closets and thin them out
- Remove the clutter from every room in the house
Even though home inventories are falling, supplies are still higher than in previous years. Home sellers wanting to stand out in a crowd may want to consider staging their homes to help them sell more quickly.
Not sold on staging your home? Keep this in mind – on average, staged homes sell for as much as 17% more money and as much as 40% faster than non-staged ones.
Seems like something to consider in my opinion.
Tyler: Home sellers need to understand that when they are putting a home on the market, they are entering it in a beauty pagent. The best looking homes sell faster and for a better price. It doesn’t matter how much the home is listed at, how many sqare feet it has or where it is located. Its a good idea to get a comprehensive consultation from a professional home stager. They can create a roadmap for a home seller to make their home appealing to the greatest number of buyers. The home seller can do the work themselves, do part of the work and hire the home staging company to do part or all of the work. Whatever fits their budget. I applaud you for suggesting to your clients that they consider staging their homes.
Thanks for the comment Michelle.
Price, condition (appeal) and location are the keys to selling a property. The first two can be controlled by the seller.