Northern NJ Home Sellers
Top 5 Home Staging Tips to Increase Your Home's Value
How your home looks and feels to a potential buyer is key to selling your home in Bergen County. Staging is about positioning your home to appeal to a maximum number of buyers. Consider the time you bought your property. Did you buy your home just because it had the features that you needed? Or did you buy it because it looked well-kept and inviting?
In order to property prepare your Bergen County home for sale, you will need to clean, declutter, and possibly improve your home so that potential home buyers will leave a showing with the best first impression. Home staging not only creates a lasting impression, but it can increase your home's value in a buyer's mind — value that you can keep at closing.
1. Make Your Home Stand Out from the Curb
Don't give buyers any reason to skip over your home, whether they are browsing listings online or driving through your neighborhood. To enhance your curb appeal, here are a few steps that you can take:
- power wash your driveway and siding
- fill any cracks in your walkways
- mow and edge the front lawn
- trim the bushes
- plant bright flowers in the yard
- improve your mailbox or purchase a new one
- clean your windows
2. Pay Special Attention to Your Front Entrance
Once your home has attracted the attention of a potential home buyer, compel them to come inside with an inviting entrance. Paint your front door a bright color (such as red) to make it stand out from the curb, and put out a clean doormat to welcome buyers inside.
For added effect, place bright flowers or a small shrub in a pot on the porch.
3. Create the Illusion of More Space
Bergen County home buyers will likely know the square footage of your house. But you can impress them when you show how you use every square inch of space.
You can make your living areas appear more spacious by taking out any unnecessary furniture, decorations, or pictures hanging on the walls, as well as by adding more light and brighter colors.
4. Ask an Expert Before You Make Major Renovations
Not all buyers are looking for newly built homes in Bergen County. Before you spend thousands of dollars on upgrading your home with the latest features, ask our real estate experts whether your home even needs major improvements. You may find that just a few upgrades are necessary, but you may learn that you can sell your home for more money without making any renovations.
However, you will need to make all necessary repairs.
Call us at (201)-391-2500 ext. 716 and we can discuss whether you need to spend the money on major home improvements.
5. Make Your Spaces More Neutral
After you clean and declutter your home, depersonalize your living spaces. While your house technically still belongs to you, you want potential home buyers to easily imagine their own belongings filling the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms.
Remove any distractions, such as personal photos and heirlooms, that can leave buyers feeling like intruders in your home rather than the future owners of it. Follow these steps to property depersonalize your home:
- paint the walls a neutral color
- take personal photos off the walls
- clean fingerprints from light switches
- get rid of pet odors and pet hair
Preparing Your Home for a Successful Sale
With other agents, you might only discover potential sale-killing issues after you are under contract — when a home inspector is hired to scrutinize every aspect of your home. With The Adler Home Team and our extensive experience, which includes marketing and building over 120 new homes, we have the expertise you need to get your home market-ready. We're able to discern whether inspections or further repairs might be required.
If repairs are needed, we can recommend a number of trustworthy, professional contractors. The extent which these repairs are made will directly affect your listing price. You will have the ability to price your home at a premium, and substantiate it, when your home is in top condition.
Addressing problems early in the process places you in control, eliminating the stress of making repairs on the buyer's terms. Having your house in move-in condition also helps you avoid delays to closing and demonstrates to buyers, agents, and home inspectors that your house has been very well maintained. We want buyers to focus on how they would live in your home — not the needed repairs.
Additionally, a home in good condition will stand out from the competition as a better value and command a higher price.
Once You've Set the Stage, It's Time to Showcase Your Home
After you have followed these key home staging tips, it's time to let the world know your home is for sale!
Many of today's buyers are looking online for their next homes, so it's key to make your home accessible online (through the Multiple Listing Service [MLS]) and with attractive high-quality photographs. Professional images are also helpful when your property is featured on your real estate agent's social media sites, property flyers and ads, and other home marketing strategies.
This is All Part of Our Personal Home Marketing Plan
There is more to selling a home than staging it and sticking a "For Sale" sign in the yard. It takes a strategic home marketing plan to make your property available to as many buyers as possible, and we can help you with everything.
Sometimes buyers need a little help visualizing the maximum potential your home has to offer. This is where staging becomes crucial. You only have one opportunity to make a stunning first impression.
Well staged homes look better, photograph better, show better, and sell faster than un-staged homes. Our expert team will help you put your home in the best light for you to get top dollar in the shortest amount of time. We will create a warm and inviting environment focusing on your home's best architectural features and selling points of your home.
Ready to sell your home for more money and as quickly as possible? Contact us and let's make an appointment.