If you sell your home, you want to ensure you get the best price possible. When selling your home, first impressions count, and you want to ensure that potential buyers fall in love the first time they see it. Decorating your home before you sell it needs to be done strategically to ensure it looks its best. You do not need to do any expensive renovations that will break the bank; you can decorate your home affordably with these tips to help make it sell faster.
Make the Closets Half-Empty
While you typically want your glass to be half-full, closets should be half-empty when you put your house on the market. Every potential buyer wants enough storage space for all their things to go through the closets. If the closet is too full, it will make it look smaller than it is, but if it is empty, that can also make it look like it is either much bigger or smaller than it truly is. Instead, leave about half of the clothing you normally have in that closet and arrange it so that it is neatly organized. When doing this, you also want to take the time to remove any valuables from the closet, including expensive clothes, jewelry, and shoes. Potential buyers will look through the closet, so you want them to see adequate storage space that is neatly organized.
Cover Your Home Foundation with Faux Stone
The first thing a prospective buyer will see when they look at your house is the exterior, which is why curb appeal is absolutely essential. The foundation of most homes is unsightly concrete, but changing its appearance is a great way to improve your curb appeal. Installing faux stone is one of the easiest and most affordable ways to update your home’s foundation. This will make it look like the foundation is made of beautiful, natural stone, but it costs a fraction of the price, and you can do it yourself in a single weekend.
Declutter and Remove Personal Items
A home will collect clutter over time, but that clutter will be off-putting to potential buyers. While clutter is a fairly natural thing in a home, when looking at a home you want to buy, the last thing you want to see is a cluttered home. Clutter to a buyer will say that the house does not look like it has been well cared for. If you have any paperwork on tables or counters, appliances are congesting the kitchen counters, or the kids’ toy chest is overflowing, take the time to clean these things up. Overflowing bookshelves are another thing you want to clean off and pull off old paperbacks that have seen better days. Make shelves only 2/3 full so that they are not too full and not too empty. Not only will this help make your house sell faster, but it will also help when it comes time to pack your things to move into your new home.
In addition to decluttering your home, you also want to remove anything overly personal from the house. People need to be able to picture themselves living there, and that is hard to do if you have family photos, mementos, the kids’ achievements, and religious items on display. You should also remove any valuables from the house, including jewelry, art, collectibles, and anything else of value you have in the house. There will be many people going through the house while it is on the market and the sale is pending, and you want to ensure that nothing important to you goes missing or gets broken in the meantime.
Make the Entrance Welcoming
You want potential buyers to feel welcome when they come to your house for the first time. Repaint or clean your front door and have the porch and home exterior pressure washed. Make sure all windows are sparkling clean too. Make sure any plants outside are pruned and healthy looking and consider adding potted plants to flank the door itself. Either get a new welcome mat or make sure it is clean and does not look dirty or used. You can hang a wreath that goes with the season or upcoming holidays on your door.
Once the exterior is taken care of, open your front door and stand outside. What is the first thing someone sees when that door opens? Ensure your coat rack is not too full, though leaving a single jacket or scarf on it is okay. Hang some beautiful art, or place a potted plant inside, something that feels like home.
Resurface Your Fireplace with Faux Stone
The fireplace is often one of the main centerpieces of the living room, and you want it to look its best. Replacing the current stone or brick surrounding the fireplace is expensive and time-consuming. Instead, install faux stone as a new fireplace surround. It is significantly more affordable and will look beautiful, which can help you sell your home faster. You can add faux stone anywhere inside and out of your home, making it a simple way to decorate the house to sell.
Don’t Fake the Decor
While prospective buyers want to see someone living in the house, they do not want the house to feel fake. Do not leave a stale, half-eaten cookie and empty coffee mug on the coffee table or leave an empty champagne glass next to the bathtub. You do not want everything to feel fake; it can make prospective buyers skeptical of the house; if the decor is fake, what else is? While something might look like it is real enough to pass, a buyer will notice. Take the time to decorate it right and be genuine about it; this will help make your home sell faster.
Show the House in the Best Light
You want your house to be bright and well-lit. Make sure the curtains are open and a light color. Strategically place lamps, and make sure the shades are clean. Also, ensure that any bushes outside of windows are pruned and let in sunlight. The house’s interior needs to be bright because that is more inviting and appealing to prospective buyers. If your home is too dimly lit, it will not give the same positive feeling as a brightly lit one.
Add One Unique Thing
While you want to remove most of your personal things from the house, leave a single unique thing in the house that stands out. This will help your home to stand out more in the minds of prospective buyers. If you have a bright orange gnome statue in the garden or a fuchsia unicorn in the living room, that will make an impact on the buyers. While you may not want to decorate your home with strange things like this, that one unique thing can help it sell faster because even if the buyers do not remember how much closet space you had or the kitchen layout, they will remember that one unique thing.
