7 TIPS FOR STAGING your home to sell during the holidayS!
Selling your home during the holidays can be a bit challenging — but you can do it and home staging can help!
The holidays are a festive time. You’re visiting with family and friends, attending parties, shopping and searching for the perfect presents. With all of the festive events, you have limited time, especially to keep your home clean.
Any potential homebuyer shopping during the holiday season is a serious buyer (otherwise, they’d be at home making merriment, too!). Couple this with a lack of inventory during this time of year and your chances of selling rise significantly!
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Tip 1: Keep the House Clean
It is very important to keep your house neat and tidy, avoid clutter, and straighten up after parties. It can be tricky if you’re constantly entertaining, but it is absolutely WORTH the extra time spent. Clean homes sell better than cluttered ones.
Suggestion: Clean often! Letting the mess pile up is a surefire way to create stress when you get the call that a potential buyer is coming around. Do little bits as you go so you’re prepared.
Tip 2: Curb appeal is still very important
Around the holidays, you may have decorations on your front lawn, or even one of the big inflatable holiday mascots. This year use the “less is more” strategy when home staging and decorating.
You do not know what holiday the potential home buyer celebrates, so be careful and don’t over do it with your decorations.
Remember, too, that you are still selling your home. Avoid untidiness in the front of the house and don’t let your holiday decor distract buyers from the beauty of your home itself.
Suggestion: On the front door use a simple wreath with a bow. If you want lights in the front of the house just decorate one tree with white lights — not colored or blinking lights. By the front door you can use two urns, one on each side of the door or on the steps with a small evergreen. Create symmetry. Keep it simple.
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Tip 3: Don’t Overpower Your Interior with Decor
Holidays give us an excuse to decorate every room of our home, but to some this may feel overpowering — or distract from the value of your hoe. This year streamline all your decorations to just the necessities.
Suggestions: If you have a Christmas tree, pick one in a smaller size so it doesn’t overpower the room it’s in. Remove a chair once you add the tree, as you want the room to still look and feel large enough to walk in.
Tree decorations should be tasteful not flashy. The color of the decorations should blend, coordinate and compliment the color of the room. If your room colors are brown, orange, tan or black try decorations in bronze, gold, or ivory colors. If your room is blue or yellow, try using ornaments that are blue, white or silver, not everything has to be red and green today. There are so many decoration color choices to choose from!
Simple white lights add sparkle and are the way to go. Stay away from blinking or colored lights. Simple and elegant is the look to go for this year!
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Tip 4: Highlight the fireplace
Highlight the fireplace but don’t hide it. It’s a strong selling feature of your home. A few tasteful ornaments, candles or evergreens displayed nicely will go a long way. Wait until Christmas Eve to hang the stockings so you don’t cover up the mantle or hearth during showings.
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Tip 5: Tastefully Spice Up Bookshelves
A bookcase can be a nice place for a few evergreen springs or a few ornaments clustered together – but not on every shelf. Here’s a nice example:
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Tip 6: Hide the Presents!
Presents are lovely for adding cheer to your home, but can devalue your property in the eyes of potential buyers. To keep the room clear of extra boxes and clutter, don’t put presents out early.
Tip 7: Pack up the holiday quickly
Once the holiday is over, quickly take down and put away all decorations. Get you house back to the way it was. If decorations are left up too long, the buyer may apply your slowness in packing up holiday decor to a slowness in repairing things in the house!
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Lastly, let the holiday selling season work to your advantage. Stage your house to sparkle with just enough holiday lights, decorations, soft music, maybe even the smell of baked cookies (do it!), and you will be reaching the emotional senses of the homebuyer. They will start to imagine their family living there!
Soon, the next decoration on your front lawn with be a “SOLD” sign. :)
If you’re ready for some help in selling your home for top dollar, contact us here.