You Have 15 Seconds to Sell Your Home
11 Home Staging
Tips to Sell Your Home for Top Dollar
by Jeanette Joy Fisher
Selling your home? Here are some tips to help you sell yours for more than
your next door neighbor's, and faster! Most buyers will know within 15 SECONDS
after crossing the threshold if they want your home. But first, you need to
attract them inside! 11 home staging steps to take to sell your home
for top dollar:
1. Start at the street. The buyer's first glimpse of your home must entice
them inside. Design Psychology goes further than mere curb appeal. Here are some
easy additions you can make to help your home outshine the competition:
Add a couple of BIG plants, either in hanging baskets or pots, to the porch,
which will lead buyers' eyes to the entrance.
The first color our eyes process is yellow, so place yellow flowers near the
front door.
Plant white flowering annuals, since they look clean and show up better at
night--when many home shoppers look.
2. Get rid of brown or dead leaves and bare spots in the yard. Add mulch to
cover bare dirt near the house. Bright flowers hold the eye and "fill" empty
areas, but you don't need to add plants to every space. Just make sure that
everything looks neat.
3. Paint your front door a happy color. Yellow-gold (amber), red
(blue-based), sage, apple, or forest green, depending on the other colors of
your home, will attract the eye and create happy feelings. Buyers won't notice
the color psychology you take advantage of, but they'll love the result.
4. Once buyers step inside the front door, they usually make their minds up
within 15 SECONDS, so first impressions are vitally important. Focus your
attention on the first wall buyers will see, and then hang a mirror on that wall
large enough to reflect the buyer's image. It will psychologically reinforce the
buyer's presence in the home when they see themselves in the mirror, causing
them to imagine living in your home.
5. Go beyond just clearing clutter, and remove furnishings that don't add to
the setting. Also clear bathroom and kitchen countertops. Under-furnished homes
let the buyer's imagination fill rooms with their own belongings. Once they
visualize their favorite chair in a particular spot, you have a sale.
6. Pack away your personal photographs, trophies, diplomas, and small
accessories and stack them neatly in the garage or a separate storage space.
That will also protect you from having strangers view your personal life.
7. If your home looks too bare, replace your personal treasures with house
plants or cuttings from the garden. Be creative; you don't need to spend money.
- Use tree branches and fresh flowers to bring nature indoors.
- Fill vases and glass jars with fresh cuttings and set them in baskets.
- Add green house plants in winter, spring, and fall.
- During hot selling seasons, use green, silver and gray foliage to help keep
your home visually cool.
8. Lighting affects your buyers' emotions and is a crucial design element for
happiness, so turn on the lights when showing your home. Day-like light bulbs
enhance happiness. Amber and pink light bulbs warm, while blue light cools.
9. Air the house out. You get used to odors, but buyers shouldn't smell
anything other than natural pleasing scents like wood burning in the fireplace
or fresh lemon in the summer. Cut up a grapefruit and run sections through the
garbage disposal. It's both refreshing and clean smelling.
10. Buyers like temperatures around 70 degrees in the winter and 67 degrees
in the summer, so turn up the thermostat in the winter and turn it down in the
summer.
11. Park your car out of the way and encourage buyers to park in a space
where their car won't block the view from the inside.
Remember, you've only got 15 seconds to sell your home, but by using Design
Psychology techniques, you can convert lookers into buyers and get top dollar
for your home.
(c) Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars:
Using Design Psychology to Increase Real Estate Profits, Home Staging For
Top-Dollar Sales, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design
Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, and newsletters, visit:
http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/ Information about Design
Psychology:
http://www.designpsych.com/