Spring is just around the corner and with it comes a wonderful opportunity to address sprucing your home up to make look great for a sale. Staging a home for sale means many things and as much work as needs to be done inside don’t forget the outside. This is the time of the year that you really should use your staging talents outside and address that all important curb appeal, garden, court yard, landscaping and environmental view.
Spring provides smart agents the perfect opportunity to get a jump start on other listed homes that may be empty or where sellers have “mentally already checked out” and thus are not spending too much time on the outside of their home. There are many simple home staging tips such as pruning away all dead and or unnecessary growth, greening up the lawn, cleaning up the planting beds, adding fresh flower beds, adding new mulch and so on. Encourage your home sellers to be proactive with their garden so that their home will stand out first and have the best curb appeal through the highest selling season of the year.
This is a great time to consult with your landscaper or visit the local nursery and get some great ideas of early blooming plants and the right fertilizer mix for your lawn. Nothing is more appealing than driving up to view a house that has beautifully maintained landscaping. Does this mean you have to invest the whole staging budget to get to that point? Not at all. You would be surprised at how much value can be obtained from just doing those things previously mentioned.
The caveat here is to maximize what you have. First and foremost help your sellers focus on highlighting those areas of the house that stand out. For example, if there is a great patio then start with that as the focal point and remove all the clutter and make sure the surrounding area compliments the patio. Don’t let your sellers just pull the patio furniture out of the garage and hose it off. It should be repaired, painted or replaced. The same goes for decking and fencing. This may be the perfect time to repair and re-stain. If its concrete then power washing or steam cleaning may be the answer. What you are looking for is the “I want to spend time here” look on the buyer’s face. Often times we put our focus on the inside of the house and then just “spruce up” the outside. Remember, the outside is the first and last thing the buyers see and is most likely a key visual as they reflect on the house later on.
These few tips are just a portion of the valuable information you can obtain by taking the Accredited Home-Staging Specialist (AHS) course. It is loaded with hundreds of tips on how to show your clients the way to a better staged home, both inside and out. It is widely acknowledge through various studies by HomeGain, RealSure and the National Association of Realtors® that a staged home sells faster sale. Become an Accredited Home-Staging Specialist (AHS) and acquire the extra skills and knowledge you need to succeed this summer. For more information visit www.StagingSpecialist.com
