5 To-Dos for a Quick Listing

The Spring selling season is almost upon us. Are you ready? With limited inventory on the market, the home selling/buying process is moving very quickly. If you are needing to put your house on the market in a quick time-frame, we have come up with 5 things you need to do before listing. These are all very economical tasks you, as the homeowner, can do in a short time frame that will increase the salability of your home.

De-Clutter

Our home revolves around our lives. Life gets messy - especially with kids. But when selling a home, let's edit some of the items we use on a daily basis. We don’t really need buyers seeing our every day lives spilled out on the countertops of our kitchens and bathrooms. AND buyers don’t really want to see evidence of someone else living in the home.

Furniture Placement

If you can't see it, you can't sell it. Draw attention to the focal points of the room and make sure you have have ample walking space from room to room. This may mean moving some furniture out into storage while your house is on the market.

Clean, Clean, Clean!!

We are talking Spring cleaning on steroids. Make sure to take into consideration things you don't normally think about on a regular basis like air vents, light fixtures and grout. Sometimes buyers can see past clutter but they can’t see past the cleanliness and condition of the home.

Adding Style

Adding a few inexpensive light touches makes a huge difference. New pillows always freshen up an old sofa. New white crisp bedding and towels give off that clean hotel appeal while adding style to a space.

Curb Appeal

Realtors spend several minutes at each home trying to open the lock box and get the key to the home. During this time buyers are analyzing ALL the details of the front exterior. First impressions are huge! Items you can tackle in this area include trimming those overgrown bushes, adding a fresh coat of paint to the front door, giving the flower beds a fresh appearance with new mulch, and planting seasonal flowers.

The market is definitely crazy right now and things are moving at a fast pace. These 5 things will put you in the right direction toward a quick listing date. If you are feeling overwhelmed or your house needs a little TLC before hitting the market, book a home staging consultation with us. We will give you a room by room priority list of what you can do to spruce up your space within your budget. We can shine a spotlight on your home!

Tomorrow is Just a Day Away - When is the Best Time to Call in a Home Stager?

The decision to list a home for sale can often occur quickly. It ranges from a result of life or work circumstances, to simply finding the perfect home and needing to sell the current home first.

Listing a home can become quite a production for your clients. If you compare it to a Broadway musical, it comes together with the work of many people.  With a musical you have the design of the product (the play), the promotion of the product (marketing) and the appearance of the product (the set and the characters).  All of these components come together to hopefully create a box office hit. 

Just like producing a musical on stage, putting a house on the market must be a well-choreographed process.  This process includes promotion, price and product.  As a realtor, you advise the seller to come to the most achievable price point in which to sell.   It is your fiduciary responsibility to provide your client with all the tools at your disposals in promoting the listing. The product, one of the most crucial component to the process, is one of the easiest portions to enhance, yet requires the coordination of many moving parts, of which staging has the overall highest ROI. But when should this part of the process take place? 

We have created a great guideline for deciding when a staging consultation should happen.  We believe a good parameter should be 1 week for every year you have lived in your house. For instance, if the seller has lived in the house for 2 years, schedule a consultation two weeks prior to listing.  If the seller has lived in the house for 10 years, plan on 2 ½ months prior to listing.  The need for upgrades and deferred maintenance are substantially higher the longer someone has lived in the house. In addition, the amount of personal possessions tends to grow with each year. Our consultation will outline what maintenance needs to be completed before list date and what should stay or go. The goal of our consultation is to focus on the tasks that provide you with the highest return on investment (ROI).  Our guideline gives sellers plenty of time to schedule contractors for the work to be completed as well as sufficient time to edit their possessions. 

If furniture and accessory staging is needed, post consultation, our lead time is typically one and a half weeks in advance.  Our detailed design is customized to the needs of the home, with any suggested upgrades, updates and scheduled work all geared to support the list price of the home.

Our staging, along with proper price and aggressive marketing, will complete that perfectly choreographed process for selling a home FAST and making it a "box office hit" on the market.

Give us a call at 703-552-4545 or simply click HERE to book your consultation online to start your perfect listing.