Set your house apart in a tight market! (Part 2)

While marketing your home for sale, one of the most effective ways to set it apart from the “competition” is careful staging. Staging is the use of furnishings, decor, and landscaping to present your home in a picturesque display for each showing. In doing this carefully, you allow each potential buyer to picture themselves in the home and develop an emotional connection. Curb appeal is often the first impression, and the most memorable image of the home, so landscaping is crucial to your staging plans. Excessive clutter and personal items can be a significant damper on a buyer’s impression of a home, so have a yard sale or rent a storage unit to reduce the mess. Limit photographs, but don’t stash all of them, as the pictures do give a sense of “home” to your house. Keep pet influences to a minimum when selling your home, and be sure to get an objective opinion about the existence of pet odors you might not notice as a long time pet owner. Your goal should be to “wow” each potential buyer from the second they pull up, all the way through their showing, and hopefully into a contract to purchase!