A Guide To Staging Your Home For Selling
Selling a house is a stressful time in everyone’s life. After all, you don’t know how quickly it will sell, how easy it will be to find the right buyer and whether you’ll be able to get the price you want for your home.
Thankfully though, there are some simple steps that you can take to make your home’s interiors more appealing before you sell it and move into a retirement property. To help you, we've put together some useful advice.
Remove Clutter
You’ll want to create the illusion of space as much as possible, so ideally floors and surfaces, such as tables and countertops, should be clutter free. Take this as a chance to have a proper clear out ahead of the move and go through your belongings. Now is the time to throw unwanted items out, give them to charity or store neatly out of sight. Whilst removing clutter, don’t forget about organising your cupboard, just in case they’re opened whilst people view the property. You’ll also want to ensure that you avoid overfilling shelves – use them for displaying accessories, decorative books and plant.
Demonstrate How To Use Awkward Areas
Part of staging a property, is helping potential buyers imagine themselves living there. Maximise the space by making use of even awkward areas, such as areas under the stairs by turning them into a storage solution for coats and shoes. Add shelving and hooks and suddenly you have a really useful space.
Inspect Floors
Grubby, tired looking carpets could potentially put off buyers, so pay attention to your floors. Even if you don’t have the budget to replace carpets, a good professional clean can help give them a new lease of life and eliminate any smells caused by pets and cigarette smoke. Also check the upkeep of your floorboards and repair any creaky floorboards. Where you have exposed floorboards, consider getting these re-waxed or re-stained.
Neutral Always Appeals
You may love your bright feature walls, but everyone has different taste. If you decorate your home in bright, bold colours, then some buyers will find it hard to visualise the space and they may be put off from purchasing your home as a result.
For this reason, before you put your home on the market, redecorating with neutral colours is a great way to make your home more appealing. This is a very low cost thing to do and the small amount of money you pay for the paint is worth it because the new interiors will help you sell your home far quicker.
Making Your Home Light and Airy
You may not be able to make small windows bigger without costly and invasive building works taking place, but you can certainly give the illusion that they’re bigger. If you’d like to make your smaller windows appear larger invest in a pair of long curtains. Light and airy homes are much more appealing than dark ones, so ensure that you pull the curtains right back and pull the blinds up to allow plenty of light to flood the room.
Leave Doors Open
Another way to create a welcoming and light filled home to is to leave doors open. This will allow prospective buyers to feel welcome and free to wander around your home. It also helps areas such hallways look brighter, as it borrows light from other rooms. You should also repaint or retreat doors if necessary and they should open and close without issue.
Adding Texture Adds Interest
Finally, consider how you’d like to finish your home. Remember, people who are searching for a property will want to move into somewhere that feels like a home, so don’t remove all personality from it.
When it comes to finishing touches, texture is increasingly used to add interest to rooms. Laying different textures in similar colours is particularly popular; especially with people who like to use cushions and blankets.
But, don’t forget to include plants, dried flowers, vases and prints where possible. They provide a great touch of personality and help bring a room to life.
To help your home feel as spacious as possible remove furniture that’s taking up unnecessary space. For example, if you’ve got a narrow hallway that is filled with personal items and furniture, remove these before viewings to create the best possible first impression.
Ensure your home smells clean and fresh by opening a window to let fresh air circulate. Air fresheners and candles can also help to get rid of any lingering odours and help it to smell fresh. Don’t forget to use side lamps, even during daylight, to give the feeling of warmth. If possible, avoid harsh overhead lighting.
A lot of attention can be paid to the interior, but the exterior is just as important. If you have outside space, don’t forget to remove weeds, cut back overgrown plants and clear the garden of any clutter.
A freshly painted front door can also make a strong first impression and create kerb appeal.
And Finally…
Follow these simple tips from us and you’ll have no problem selling your home in next to no time. If you are planning to sell your home and are ready to explore your next move in retirement, you could visit a nearby McCarthy Stone development show apartment to find out more about the retirement lifestyle you can enjoy when living at one of our developments. There are a number of ways we can help, from Part Exchange to our Smooth Move Service
For details of our current available developments, please visit our website or give us a call on 0800 201 4811 for further details.
