importance of keeping the house clean as possible when it ’ s listed . If you ’ re worried because you have a family living there , we can help you come up with a strategy so that showings are only on certain times when you know it will be clean . If you don ’ t have someone to help you clean the home , we can provide a referral . If you already have someone who regularly helps you clean your home , you may want to double up that service while the home is on the market .
4 . Buyers worry about wear and tear . If buyers see initial maintenance issues when they first enter the house , guess what they ’ re going to do next ? They ’ re going to start looking high and low for other issues . It may be a small thing , but once they see it , their entire opinion of the home is impacted . Instead of envisioning themselves living in the home , they ’ ll think about what else needs to be repaired and worry about what else in the home has been neglected . That is not the feeling you want buyers to have when they tour a home . Therefore , we urge homeowners to address these issues before we list the house . Waiting to see if the buyers ask for those items to be addressed always backfires and leads to lower-priced offers and more time on market . For example , foregoing a $ 2,000 in repairs and touch up , could end up costing sellers over $ 10,000 in the final sale price they get for the home and additional months on the market .
5 . Buyers feel like they ’ re in someone else ’ s home . A seller might have unique decor and furnishings , and that ’ s what makes it a nice home — for them . They might be proud of the time and money they spent decorating their home and want to show it off . The challenge is to scale back so that buyers don ’ t feel like they ’ re in somebody else ’ s home . Buyers should be able to imagine themselves living in that home . Buyers might even be pleasantly distracted by a seller ’ s knick-knacks and family pictures , but that keeps them from imagining themselves in the home . They may not fall in love with it because it ’ s just not their style or because it clearly feels like someone else ’ s house , not potentially theirs . They ’ re going to wonder more about the lives of the people who live there than about how their own furniture is going to fit in a room . The home should be staged like a model home instead of a personal home , or buyers might not end up making an offer . A seller doesn ’ t need to remove everything to the point where the home feels sterile . But the more the home is specifically designed and decorated to make it feel like home for the current homeowners , the less it will feel like home to the buyers .
6 . There is a lot more to staging than furniture . Staging has become more popular than ever because it ’ s proven itself to work over and over again . Staging doesn ’ t always mean spending big money or changing out all your furniture . Sometimes it ’ s a matter of consulting with a professional designer about changing a wall color or having some furnishings rearranged . Staging is one investment that always pays for itself in spades .
The Listing Triangle™ Page 10