How to style your home for sale in 5 easy steps

So, in case you missed it on my instagram, we moved! This was long time coming as I was ready to move for over a year now, since our house was just simply too small for our big family.

Before I share with you more about our new house, and all the makeovers I’m doing, today I wanted to share my tried and tested ways to getting your house showing ready and selling it FAST.

We have sold our condo 6 years ago in 5 days, and our house now in 3 weeks ( in the context of a global pandemic, so I think it’s still a pretty good result!) First time around we had an agent and I was the one taking care of styling our home for sale – aka home staging. This time though we decided to skip the agent and I took care of both styling for sale and showcasing our home on our own! And each time we have sold for much more than we bought- almost double this time around!

So, how can you style to sell for the best price possible?

The devil is in the details- when people come to see your house every little detail counts! So, do they see the peeling paint? If there’s any, you can bet they will notice it right away! Do they see clutter? Yup, if things aren’t perfectly organized, they will, and they will think that the house is too small for them, because clutter means you don’t have enough space! Does the house look small because of the overload of all furniture? Are there big reparations that they need to do? Everything plays a part in how people will see your house and how much they will be willing to pay for it!

Style your home for sale in 5 easy steps- aka my tried and tested secrets to easy home staging

Now, if you’re ready to put your house on the market and would like to sell fast and for the best price possible here are my tried and tested steps!

1.Finish all the small renovations and paint inside.

This is probably the most important steps of all- and the most time consuming too. However, with an investment of a couple hundred dollars – to a thousand or two you can expect a pay off of many thousands more on the price of your house. By small renovations I mean:

Fix little issues like:
unfinished baseboards
broken electrical switches
peeling paint
old silicone around bath and sink.

Make sure you have updated anything that’s broken but would be included in the price of the home like home appliances, squeaky doors etc. ( of course only if you want to get the highest possible price!)
Change the rotted patio boards if there are any.
And make sure there are no unfinished renovations visible.
Paint any space that haven’t had a touch up in the last 3-4 years.

Make sure that your home is NOT painted with any bold or controversial colours, as the majority of people will prefer a bright and fresh white tone, a cal cool gray or a warm greige over an original and bohemian hue of orange or green!

Now, you might ask yourself why bother with all the little renovations if they are generally low in cost and so the new owners could very well take care of them on their own? And you might say that it’s better not to paint since people want to paint with the colours they like anyway, right?

But there’s one thing that you need to remember- most people will want to move to a READY TO MOVE HOME. Turnkey is the exact word, and is what sells best and for the best price!

And even if me and maybe you too, we like makeovers and projects, for the majority of people a long list of small renovations will be a turn off! Or an argument to negotiate the price much lower than your starting point.

And as it goes for paint, it’s the one thing that instantly gives the place a new and fresh look for the lowest money cost.

2.Declutter.

And by that I mean clean your closets like never before
Donate or sell what you don’t need and keep only the essentials visible.
Have your rooms furnished in a way that there’s space to easily walk around, so if you have any cramped in the corners tables, oversized chairs and big sideboards, simply pack them and send to garage or a loacker.
Make sure everything looks well organized- on tour shelves, inside your kitchen cabinets, and inside your closets.

3.Pre pack like you mean it.

Pack in boxes the clothing from the opposite season, half of your kids toys, half of your kitchen plates etc. You want people to see a house that breathes and has lots of space, and not a one that is full of your things.
Also, pre packing will help you in your move if ever things move very fast once you do sell

4.Style your home in a coherent way

If you love both farmhouse and eclectic and modern styles your home may be a gorgeous mix of trends, but for an average person visiting it might just feel like a mess. Taste is subjective but what people want is a feeling of ” this house feels like home” and ” I could make it mine” So while it should be decorated , it should also feel calm and clean- and for that you should have it decorated in a coherent way. So one style, one colour palette.

How to do it:

Pack all of the very original decor pieces you might have.

Decide on a colour that you can spread around your house, and using different hues and tones decorate with it throughout. For example blue is a favorite of most people on earth, so you could have light blue curtains, darker blue pillows, a print on a wall with some blue in it and a blue vase on the kitchen counter.

But remember in home staging less is more!

5.Add subconscious touches.

So the cherry on top in home staging would be smell. After your home is all clean and there’s no pet or cigarette smell, make sure it actually smells like home.

So, with use of scented candles, or essential oils you can maake your home smell like:

cookies
fresh linen
baked apples
cinnamon
vanilla

A lot of people won’t even realize it, but they will remember that they FELT GOOD while visitig your house!

That’s it, all of my seacrets that helped us sell fast and for the highest price in our neighborhood! I hope this can help you to sell as best possible too!