Before buyers set foot in your home, they will first see the exterior of your home.  Keep the lawn, landscaping, driveway and walkways neatly manicured. Ensure the front entry and front door are inviting, and consider placing flowers and a fresh door mat to welcome in perspective buyers. Many home owners will hire a yard service while their home is on the market to keep it looking great at all times.

If you don’t immediately need it then throw it away, donate, sell or pack it up.  Your home needs to have the minimum amount of furnishings and belongings as possible, but still look livable.  Since you are moving in the near future, how about starting to pack up boxes and place them in the garage or storage unit?

When you have out-of-town guests come to stay with you, do you clean beyond the ‘normal’ clean? I hope so! This is the amount of clean needed in your home on a regular basis. If you know you will have a showing of your home, clean the day before. The cleaning odors will be gone by the following day. Don’t give a buyer a reason to think your home is dirty.

Open all windows treatments and makes sure windows are clean.  Swap out heavier drapery for lighter weight fabrics.  For rooms that are too bright, use sheers that will diffuse light and cast a glow into your space.

As you walk through your home, take note of the color schemes as you transition from room to room.  If the living room is blue, and the bedrooms are pink and green, you’re visually chopping up the house.  This will make it feel smaller and less unified.  Opt for more neutral tones – maybe a less saturated version of the blue, pink and green.  If you’re unsure on colors – use warm camel, beiges, grays and warm whites to unify and enlarge the rooms.

Home buying is an emotional process, so appeal to their senses when staging your home. Soft music playing when perspective buyers enter your home is inviting and welcomed.  The smell of fresh baked cookies (make the night before and pop in microwave quickly before guests arrive) always warms up a buyer.  Soft throw blankets across a reading chair and soft hand towels in the bathrooms will appeal to their sense of touch and will add coziness to your home.

This simply means every time you walk out the door your home should look like a buyer would want to make an offer on it, that day. Once your home is on the market, live as if a Realtor could call you any minute to show your home. This idea isn’t far from reality! Teach older kids about picking up after themselves during your home being on the market. Each member of the family will have to do less each day, if everyone helps keep it tidy and clean.

Let your perspective buyers’ picture themselves in your home.  To do this, your personal family photographs, children’s artwork on the refrigerator, and collections should be removed.  Don’t give the buyer a chance to form an opinion of your home based on your taste and personalized belongings.  Let them savor your home for its characteristics and not your stuff!

With busy schedules, often times Realtors will show your home in the evening.  This means lighting needs to be inviting in each area of your home.  Walk through your home in the evening and see if there are dark, unlit spaces and address them with a table lamp, sconce, or overhead light source.

This is a ‘trick’ because with all the doom and gloom news about the housing market there is still a bright side. The bright side is the housing market is showing improvement and you are going to shine above the competition with your staging tricks.  Your confidence will show in your home and an offer will come sooner than you expect.