Getting your home picture perfect ready takes more than cleaning the counters, organizing your living room space, making the bed, vacuuming and picking up the backyard. With today’s market it's more important than ever to make sure you stage your home in order for it to stand out amongst the other homes on the market. The right staging can boost your homes showing, people's interest in your home, and inevitably get you a higher buying price on your home. Keep reading to find out why staging is a critical piece of selling your home, and some easy tips to help get your home sold.

What is a Sellers Market?

Simply put a sellers market is when there is a higher demand of homebuyers looking for a new home then there are houses listed on the market. This normally equates to higher home prices, and more cut throat bidding wars for homes. This is the time period where the home sellers have the upper hand on how much they get for their home, and some aren't afraid to wait for the perfect offer. 

A Staged Home Results in Better Photos

Your listing photos are what makes your home stand out above the others when people are scrolling through real estate websites. A new listing tends to get three times the views in its first week of being live on the market, and 85% of buyers say that photos are the most important aspect that draw them into being interested in looking and purchasing a home. In short, your listing photos are a first impression and it’s important that sellers do what they can to obtain the best listing photos possible. 

Depersonalize So Your Buyers Can Visualize

It’s hard for people to buy a home if they can’t see themselves living within the home during the initial showing. Make sure to take down any personal photos or possessions off the wall, countertops and shelving. It’s hard for potential buyers to see themselves in your space and purchase your home when they feel like they are viewing someone else's home obviously it is but, when selling you want to try to avoid that feeling. Make it easy for the potential buyers to envision their family photos and personal items up on the wall and shelving while viewing your home. It also helps if you declutter your home, take down any fixtures or any other items of décor that aren't necessary. This further allows them to envision their belongings in the living spaces instead of yours, when there are less items in the room it make is much easier to do so.  The more an individual can envision their personal items in your home and where they might put them, the more they are inclined to make an offer.

Make It a Home

It’s important to evoke that feeling of “home” for your potential buyers as they walk through your house. Staging a home with more modern and clean furniture and accessories can do so much for your home's appearance and overall appeal to potential buyers. Try to move your furniture around your home, if you don’t have the money to invest in a few new items to help the sale. It sometimes can be as easy as moving some furniture around your home into different locations to give your home a cleaner and revamped vibe. 

Avoid Dark Colors and Future In Your Home

It’s best to avoid dark paints, and furniture when staging your home for marketing purposes. Darker colors can make a space look a lot smaller, and sometimes that can detract buyers from making an offer. Painting your walls white or a cream along with taking out that dark furniture is another easy way to change up your home for the better, along with making it more appealing to potential buyers. 

Add Some Illusion

Along with avoiding dark furniture, and removing clutter there are other things you  can do in order to make your home seem more inviting, and larger than it actually is. Try to avoid having furniture in your home that just barely fits against a wall or in a specific room. Instead try to only feature the small furniture in your home during the showing process. Placing a low bed near a window can also help create this illusion, you can enhance this look by hanging a mirror on the opposite wall to reflect the outdoors making the room seem even larger. Use light colored bedding on all the beds in the house, beds take up a lot of space in a bedroom and having the bedding a white or cream color, makes the bed blend in more to the light colored walls and expands the bedroom. Also adding vertical shelving and art into the space to make rooms look taller and larger.

Think About The Outdoors

Especially since the pandemic and forced isolation in our homes, outdoor spaces are becoming more prominent in buyers' minds and hold more importance to them. Staging your properties baloneys, porches, front yard and backyard can greatly increase your properties appeal. Plant new flowers, power wash the deck and walkways, make sure your outdoor space is an addition to the house, not an afterthought. If you have a smaller home, this is also a way to make your home seem slightly larger by really incorporating your outdoor space as a separate “room” for you potential buyers to work with. 

 

Whether you are considering putting your house on the market next spring or even further down the road, there are a litany of home improvement projects that you can complete entirely on your own to add value to your home. If you have a little free time, and you are ready to roll up your sleeves and apply a little elbow grease, you will be surprised by how dramatically you can boost your asking price. A well-informed homeowner will also keep a record of all the updates and improvements they make over the course of their ownership, and will be aware of projects that can provide the best return on investment. Usually, sellers can expect a return for home improvement projects at around 64% assuming the home is sold within a year of the projects being completed.

The most obvious and easiest project to begin elevating the value of your home is to start decluttering. Clearing junk and erroneous materials out of your home can add nearly $2,000 to your home’s value in addition to making it exceedingly easier to begin showing your home. In most cases, decluttering shouldn’t cost more than $300, and can bring in a ROI of up to 568%. Deep cleaning and decluttering are the cheapest and easiest ways to keep your home looking it’s best while simultaneously making your life and the prospect of selling your house easier. Decluttering and getting your home in order room by room will also help decrease your stress level in an often anxiety ridden process.

Another cost-effective project home improvement is paint, a fresh coat of paint can go a long way. Freshly painted walls look clean and updated, which translates to value in the eyes of prospective buyers. Stick to neutral colors to appeal to the greatest number of people. A fresh coat of paint is a quick project that will get things in order, and will also bring a 1%-2% increase in your property value. Painting projects don’t need to end at interior walls either, consider sanding and staining or painting your kitchen cabinets. This project can be time consuming, as it is often advised to take the cabinets off before sanding or repainting, but it is a terrific opportunity to transform the look and feel of a kitchen or bath.

Kitchens are the part of the home that gets the greatest return when updated. While it is often a more expensive undertaking, updating kitchen appliances like the dishwasher, microwave and stove (preferably stainless steel) can increase the value of your home immensely. A full kitchen remodel typically only yields a ROI around fifty cents on the dollar. Essentially, a deep clean, a fresh coat of paint, and installing a new faucet and cabinetry pulls will go a long way towards making your kitchen more desirable in the eyes of prospective buyers. Even though kitchens are the first place sellers consider spending their investment dollars, other projects bring a higher return and improve the look of your home as a whole.

Major home renovations can be risky investments, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make small upgrades to key spaces like your kitchen and baths to impress buyers. If you have long craved the elegance of natural stone in your home, consider a new granite bathroom vanity top, which is an affordable way to get it. You can complete this type of bathroom makeover with a new faucet and mirror for less than $500. Another quick project that can give your bathroom a refresh is to update outdated and boring fixtures. This proves true for the entirety of your home as well, every fixture in your home should have a cohesive style. Replace all the knobs, pulls, switch plates, and light fixture with the same type of material. Brushed nickel is timeless and clean and will help create a desirable style for a broad range of buyers.

Lighting can also make a noticeable difference in older bathrooms. A long row of round bulbs over the mirror will completely brighten up and change the aesthetic of an antiquated bath. Living in the same house for decades, you might be used to replacing lights with the same replacement bulbs you have used since you initially moved in. However, lightbulb technology has come a long way towards being more efficient. If you replace your fixture bulbs with LEDs across your entire house, inside and out, that can be a huge selling point that you can highlight in your listing description when it comes time to sell. Energy efficient upgrades like using LED bulbs or installing Energy Star certified windows can boost a home’s value by 1-3%. You can also brighten up your house without breaking the bank by cleaning skylights and removing outdated curtains that may be blocking natural light.

Homebuyers typically prefer hardwood flooring options over wall-to-wall carpeting. While the idea of removing carpets and refinishing wood floors on your own may seem daunting, this task can be done on a budget with the proper tools and know-how. Be prepared to spend a fair amount of time removing the existing carpet or other floor materials in addition to time preparing the space and installing new flooring. New wood floors or even high-quality vinyl or tile can deliver a significant return on investment and help your home sell faster.

If you’re getting serious about selling your home and want to get the most bang for your buck in regards to home improvement projects, the best thing you can do is talk to a real estate agent and ask them to do a walkthrough of your house. They will have a meticulous eye and be able to point out any areas that need to be addressed before you list. Agents are trained to look at the little details in your home that buyers will notice and comment on. This is the best method to direct your dollars and time towards projects that will pay dividends and make your house sell quicker without wasting any time or effort.

Homeowner Associations are essentially a governing structure for a planned community. Often representing a development of single-family homes, condominiums, or townhouses. Similar to a landlord or property manager, an HOA operates as an entity that maintains the community by taking care of certain features in exchange for a monthly or annual fee. In 2018, ¼ of the U.S. population lived under some type of community association, spread among over 347,000 associations nationwide. Homeowners Associations govern 33% of homes in the Northeast. Although every association is fundamentally different, living in an HOA community comes with many benefits as well as many conditions and stipulations that residents can find relatively burdensome. HOAs can be efficient and professional or can mismanage the community and misspend money. The simple fact is that there are advantages and disadvantages that come with every homeowner association.

HOA costs vary, one cost frequently included in the fees they collect are utilities. The association often take responsibility for basic water and gas as well as city services such as sewer, trash, and recycling, effectively cutting down on the number of bills their residents have to pay each month. The most obvious draw of some HOAs fees is that they include amenities like swimming pools, tennis courts, golf courses, playgrounds and gyms in their communities – Which are entirely maintained and serviced by the community association. Although the scope of amenities will add to the overall association fees, on average, each dollar and dues buys $1.19 in benefits.

Association Fees are mandatory and can get expensive, depending on the community and what the fees include. On average, associations incur $2,800 in fees, annually. Most monthly assessments are about $100 to $300, in addition to maintenance and upkeep, these fees pay for employees who work for the HOA, as well as money for a reserve fund, typically for unexpected expenses and emergencies. HOA fees are an additional cost on top of a resident’s mortgage, property tax, and homeowner insurance, and members are required to pay, even if they don’t use all of the amenities. HOA fees can affect a prospective homeowner’s budget to buy a house in an HOA  community and can ultimately lessen their buying power.

One of the most common benefits provided by HOAs is that they handle a majority of the exterior upkeep in the community, ensuring residents don’t have to worry about mowing their lawn or doing landscaping. They also can take responsibility for trash pickup, snow removal, as well as cleaning and painting exteriors. Common spaces also usually fall under the umbrella of the Homeowners Association; repairing roads, roofs, walls and building components (particularly in a condominium complex.) Needless to say, the more services offered by the association, the higher the fee, services can even include heating and air conditioning systems, electrical systems, plumbing, and security systems can be handled exclusively by the HOA.

Generally, an HOA establishes rules to ensure the neighborhood looks clean and presentable – these rules often come in the form of strict guidelines regarding anything from how tall residents grass can grow to restricting the palate of paint colors residents are allowed to paint the exterior of their houses in. This limited personalization ties into the idea of following a HOAs rules, and can help with the overall property values. These rules also ensure that one or two rogue properties don’t weigh down the value of other properties due to an unpleasant exterior (single-family homes under HOAs sell for 4% more on average than similar homes outside of HOAs). However, residents also regularly cite restrictions on exterior home improvements as one of the worst aspects of living in a community association.

Some homeowner’s associations host social gatherings like block parties, community yard sales, cookouts, and pool parties. Once a member of the association, residents will have the opportunity to become active within the association or even be elected to serve on the HOA board, and have a chance to become better acquainted with their neighbors. HOAs also provide resources for conflict resolution between residents, whether it is over a neighbor playing music too loud, dogs barking at all hours of the night, or parking disputes. Residents can talk to their HOA about their grievances, and the association or management company will take it from there.

An issue that association members commonly face is stringent rules and penalties for running afoul of particular rules. HOAs can have meticulous guidelines, particularly in regards to home exteriors. For example, some of the infractions that could cause a fee to be issued are; a garbage can in view of the public or a neighbor, unkempt conditions like mildew or peeling paint, leaving sports equipment or bicycles out after certain hours, and having a dirty driveway or sidewalk. If residents don’t pay fines, they run the risk of the HOA placing a lien on their property or even losing their home to foreclosure. In many cases, joining a homeowner’s association is agreeing to forfeit some freedoms. In a community governed by the HOA, residents have to follow all the established rules, even if they think they are ridiculous.

Homeowner’s associations have a lot to offer, especially in regards to amenities and community upkeep, but they often come with expensive fees and strict stipulations. One of the best things prospective home buyers can do when looking at properties in a HOA’s declaration or master deed. The more research buyers can do when considering a HOA community, the better prepared they will be if they do become an association member. It is also of the upmost importance that potential residents review their budget, lifestyle and personal preference. While having access to a pool or golf course might be appealing, remembering to keep trash cans out of sight or their driveway immaculate might be something many people don’t want to add to their to-do list.