Home Staging: This is the art of leaving just enough furniture, art, window dressings, etc., in your home to give it a warmer appeal to potential buyers. Indeed, studies have shown that the properly staged home, as opposed to the empty house, is much more likely to sell for the asking price, and it will sell sooner, too.
It’s best to have a professional do this, as there are many subtle “do’s” and “do not’s” that many homeowners don’t know about that can drive potential buyers away or cause them to offer a substantially lower amount than your asking price.
If you are going to stage your home yourself, it’s important to keep a few tips in mind.
First of all, repair any “red flag” issues, such as cracks in walls or sidewalks, or gouges and scuffs, etc., in wood floors. It will probably cost much less to repair these types of thing than it will to absorb the loss from a severely reduced offer (or no offers at all) for your home. So take care of these things pronto. Second, create an air of easy accessibility and traffic flow within and between rooms. This creates a sense of comfort that will have prospective buyers smiling inside and out. So get rid of clutter and move furniture to places where it doesn’t interfere with access to cords and controls for drapes and blinds, or to controls for sound systems, etc. It’s a real turn off to have to do a rapid succession of square dance steps in a tight space every time you want to turn the lights on in your living room, so arrange furniture accordingly. Also, limit your accent pieces and be certain to vary their height. And don’t arrange pictures and other wall hangings in stodgy squares, rectangles, etc. Step them or arrange them unconventionally so that they get noticed. It’s similar to a trick that savvy shippers use when they attach “Fragile” stickers to crates and boxes: they set them off from all the other labels and then tilt them at thirty degree angles so that they attract the eye and get noticed. Otherwise, they’re lost in the array of labels and papers on that side of the package.
Be a little bit unconventional, but not too much so. You can pull furniture away from the walls and more towards the center of the room around a coffee table or other piece of furniture. This can certainly aid in facilitating the advice given above about uncluttering your rooms, but it also makes the room appear larger and inviting.
Repaint large rooms that are painted with bold colors. Use neutral colors instead for these areas (living rooms, family rooms, etc.). So go with tans, creams, grays, etc., to create a warmer feeling that will appeal to the eye of your potential buyers. These colors will also help to show off accent pieces, furniture, window dressings and carpeting, and they make it easier to visualize what the room would look like with other furniture. Bold colors intimidate prospective buyers and make it difficult to know if one’s furniture and wall hangings would be appropriate in the room. Bolder colors can be used in smaller rooms or just on a single wall in a smaller room to make some other items in the room stand out more.
Finally, clean out your closets. Closet space can be a big seller, and empty closets are bigger closets. This are the only rooms that you want empty when trying to sell your home, and they could very well be the tipping point in your favor for a buyer who has looked at several other homes and is yet undecided. So clean out those closets and make that sale.
Storage: Many moving companies have storage space available, and some even offer climate controlled storage space as well as conventional storage space. You might save money and time by renting the storage space through the company that moves you if you’re in need of storage space.
Handyman Repairs: These are light repairs that don’t require the service of a full-blown contractor, and they include everything from replacing a faucet to checking for thermal leaks with a thermal camera, and then repairing the leaks if they just require the installation of weather stripping.
Car Shipping: Some moving companies have their own car shipping company as a separate entity. If they do, this is a plus as they are required to be federally licensed, bonded, and insured, whereas moving companies that only do local moving (no shipping across state lines) are not required to have this extra level of protection for their customers.
Crating, Packaging, and Shipping: A few moving companies might have their own shipping company, that is, they do “small package” shipping (packages up to 150 lbs) through nationally advertised and well known companies (such as FedEx and UPS, for example). They might also provide “fragile pack” and crating services for high value or very fragile or expensive items such as medical imaging equipment, art, motorcycles, etc. And a few companies can provide air freight services (for items over 150 lbs gross weight) associated with crating and palletizing services. These can save potentially save you money as opposed to just trying to contact a shipping company yourself and shipping certain items with them. So check with your moving company to see if they provide these services, and how much they would cost.
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