Minute Staging - Must Do Home Staging Tactics That Cost Nothing and Only Take a Minute

MINUTE STAGING

1. Store most of your stuff
- Consider it a head-start on packing. Chances are, every room is currently over-accessorized and over-cluttered, as far as staging goes. For a rule of thumb, keep all surfaces adorned with only 3 items/decorations. Don’t assume bed-side tables, closet drawers or any place is off-limits to prospective buyers. Pack it up and get it out.

2. If you cannot hide electrical cords, store the electronics

3. Deodorize - If you have a pet, smoke cigarettes, regularly cook with pungent spices, love a man who owns “work boots” or are selling a home that’s been lived in, you need to do some deodorizing as part of staging your home. Ways you can deodorize quickly before showing a home include:

-Light candles of the same scent (vanilla, pine, cookie and Jazmin are universally appealing scents)

-Sprinkle baking soda or baby powder onto carpet and vacuum -Actually bake cookies (leave them for your prospective buyers to enjoy)

-Cut some lemons and throw small pieces into the kitchen drain and run the garbage disposal for a couple seconds. Then throw a couple pieces in and leave them.

4. Clear obstructions to the fireplace

5. If the house includes features that could go overlooked, spell it out for prospective buyers - (Example: A typed note in a plastic sleeve sitting under the television remote that says, “Welcome and feel free to enjoy the surround sound in this room.”)

6. Have fresh flowers arranged around the house - and in fact, replace any silk arrangements with the real deal. Flowers and plants on display that were obviously cut from the yard of the home for sale is a plus.

7. Encourage drinking - If you have a coffee maker on display like a Flavia or Keurig, put some disposable cups and coffee choices out. It’s ok if you don’t plan to include the appliance in the sale of the house...but if that cup of coffee evoked a solid offer on the condition you threw in the machine, would you pass?

8. Don’t lock doors or try to keep prospective buyers from anything - This goes along with making sure all areas of the home for sale are neat, clean and ready for show. The one secret you try to keep will be the ONLY reason an interested party won’t bite.

9. Empty trash baskets - Along with suggesting that you actually care that people are in your home, it suggests that you’ve been a clean, careful resident/owner of the home.

10. Don’t force prospective buyers to take their shoes off before walking the home. - It’s one of those things that will stick out in their heads instead of the features of the home they may have liked. They’ll recount, “Oh yeah, that was the one with the ridiculous ‘No Shoes’ rule.”