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They say it's a "buyer's market" in the world of real estate right now. Not good news if you're in the market to SELL your home. But, you can give your home a competitive edge with the use of some simple staging techniques.

The practice of "staging" a home is a way of spiffing up the home to give it maximum appeal to the widest range of potential buyers. A well-staged home may help you sell in a much shorter time frame and could increase the selling price by a few thousand, though you may have only spent a few hundred.

First of all, the well-presented home is spotlessly clean and uncluttered. Before investing your own sweat equity in this job, think about what needs to be done: windows washed, carpets cleaned, exterior siding power-washed, ...this can be an enormous task. It could be well worth the expense to use a professional cleaning service to get all this done. Remember to let in the light! Remove heavy drapes that block out the daylight. Open blinds to allow light to come in. Even during the daytime, have lights and accent lamps strategically lit.

Outdoors, cut back overgrown plants and bushes. Re-sod worn out spots on the lawn; make the edging sharp and neat. All concrete or other surfaces should get a good power washing. On the porch, patio or deck, pots of colorful plants and flowers add much visual appeal.

Uncluttering the home is extremely important. Being ruthless about this point can help sell your home in a shorter time. Get rid of anything that hasn't been used in the last couple of years. Expand the space in rooms by removing furniture, if possible. It may be necessary to
rent a storage unit to stash items while the home is on the market.

A home must be appealing in more than just the visual sense. If there's a breadmaking machine in your kitchen, there's nothing more pleasing than the scent of freshly baked bread.
On the other hand, make sure you've eliminated unappealing odors in the home, such as pet accidents, the cat litter box, and other pet-related smells.

To properly show a home, the list of things to do may seem endless. But, the best technique of effectively staging a home for sale is to compel the buyers to imagine their things inside.
Hide anything that says, "This is MY space, not YOURS". Remove family pictures, personal collections, certificates, trophies and anything attached to the refrigerator. Hang coats in the closet, not from a peg on the wall. You must remove anything too personal or unusual.

After all the personal stuff has been stowed away, take a serious look at the rest of your rooms. Clean and paint anything that needs it. If your rooms have been professionally decorated, you can probably leave them that way. Otherwise, think about hiring a decorator to spruce up your rooms. A good decorator can act as the perfect "stager", using what you already own, and can take from one room and add to another, thereby enhancing the rooms and showcasing their potential.

Keeping your home "open-house ready" is really not as hard as it seems. More sellers than ever are using a modern idea...hiring a realtor to video-tape the home, create a virtual tour, and post it on the Web. Once this is accomplished, you'll only have to do last-minute cleaning "blitzes" for serious prospects who've seen your virtual tour!

All serious buyers will have an inspector come to the house that they're considering. But to reach this stage, your stage must be set! In this situation, the book is certainly being judged by its cover. Your home must make a good impression, and great staging can make a huge difference.

Learn more about this author, Carol Pavelek.
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