Colorado House Finders

By now, staging a home for sale has become a common practice by sellers and their real estate agents. And like many things in preparing a home to sell, you can either choose to do it yourself or hire one of the many professional stagers around. There are advantages to both. The obvious benefit to staging your home yourself is the cost savings. If you are really on a budget, you might want to do a few Internet searches for staging tips and put your head together with your agent to come up with a house that presents itself well and that potential buyers can imagine living in themselves. 

This brings us to our first tip. All that wonderful memorabilia, photos and items that truly express your personality – take them down. Try to use more generic furniture, art and only a few accent pieces. That leads us to the next tip. Less is more. We live in a time where we have a lot of stuff, and most homeowners really like their own stuff. But, for a buyer to truly get a feel for the home and be able to, once again, imagine his or her own things in that house, you must create visual space.  

While painting, cleaning carpets and assuring that your home has the scent of a warm and inviting place are no-brainers, they bear mentioning. These are the basics to making sure your home shows off in the best possible way. Antique white shades for the walls works marvelously. Lighting should be bright and well-balanced, and left illuminated when you know you have a showing. Clean out closets, garages and other storage areas to increase the sense of available space for the buyer.  A great thing to do is leave the scent of baking bread wafting through your home on the days when there’s a showing. For the bread, don’t think you have to make your grandmother’s bread from scratch. Get a conveniently packaged, unbaked loaf or rolls at the grocery store. Just pop them in the oven and the smell will be intoxicating! 

A professionally trained stager will come in and help you move beyond these basics. In that process, they take out everything from the room and start all over. Large pieces of furniture come in first, then smaller pieces, lighting and, finally, artwork. There is an art to it and, if your budget can handle it, this kind of service can end save you valuable time and help you get closer to your asking price.   IRIS (Interior Redesign Industry Specialist) is a nonprofit organization with high and comprehensive training standards in the industry. Look for a stager who has trained with an IRIS approved instructor to make sure you’re getting the best possible service. The Colorado House Finders’ Real Estate Consulting team is experienced, professional real estate agents with certifications in Real Estate, Lending and Appraising, who specialize in Denver Colorado real estate.  For access to Denver MLS listings , contact Colorado House Finders or www.ColoradoHouseFinders.com.

1. Kitchen: Remove all the bits and pieces around your kitchen sink. Get a tray to hold your scrubbies and sponges. Soap should be stowed in the cupboard and keep out a decorative container of hand soap and lotion. Get a decorative container to hold all your large utensils by the stove. It makes cooking much easier and frees up space in your drawers.

2. Bathroom: Everything should have its place. Get cheap plastic storage containers or baskets and fill them with commonly used items. For instance have one for bandages, alcohol and other first aid items. Create another for make-up, and another for hair accessories. You’ll love how quick and easy it is to find things when you need them.

3. Home Office: Again, grab some small containers to store all those paperclips, push pins and elastics. Hang up a board, screw in binder clips and cup hooks and use it to hold bills you need to pay, invitations, or important notes.

4. Kid’s Room: For the small ones, get cheap laundry baskets to hold toys and stuffed animals. Older kids need a bookcase and desk to give them a central place to work and store their books and papers.

5. Entry: Get a small basket and fill it with slippers. Keep it right by the door so you and your guests have something to slip into after removing their shoes or wet boots. Hang hooks in your closet for all those small items such as dog leashes and keys.

6. Garage: Arrange your recycling in containers so that come garbage day it’s already sorted and you just have to take it out.

7. Broom Closet: Get screw hooks and clips to hang up your brooms, mops and dustpans and put pails and cleaners on a shelf. Add hooks to the inside of the closet door to hold tools you need in a hurry, such as a hammer, screwdriver, tape measure, etc.

8. Bedroom: I tip my hat at the inventor of the jewelry box holds everything with getting the chains all tied up. In the meantime, empty out a small drawer, place some small containers (teacups and saucers work great) and use those for your baubles. The cups work great for hanging your earrings off the rims and the containers are big enough for bulky beaded necklaces or bracelets.

9. Laundry Room: Store all the soap in a cupboard above the washer. Attach your ironing board to a wall hanger that you just pull down when you need it. Get bins for pre-sorting your clothes by colors, whites and delicates.

10. Living Room: Find a pretty container or wide-mouth vase to hold your remote controls, because after all, nobody just has one anymore. Get some storage cubes or a TV cabinet to house all those DVD’s and CD’s that accumulate around the television.

This article was written by the writing team at Colorado House Finders, Colorado REALTORS®. If you are looking for real estate in Colorado, the Colorado House Finders team of professionals can help.