Emotional attachment to our home can lead to lost equity when we prepare to sell it. Most of us have an emotional attachment to our home, but it is best if we can be detached from it when it comes to the sale of our house.
Emotions can influence a home sale in many ways. For instance we may think that our home is so wonderful that we believe it should be higher priced than the real estate agent is suggesting. This can lose us many interested buyers as it may not even fit inside their price range. If we finally drop the price in frustration two months later, it does not have the same effect, prospective buyers feel cheated and it does not encourage a positive outlook for later negotiations.
Appearance of our home is another big area where our emotions play out. It is our home and the parts of it that have our stamp of identity are the parts where we most recognize the home as ours.
Yet, it is for just this reason that our personal items should be removed. Any prospective buyers will not want to feel as if they are intruding on your personal space. You want them to feel an emotional attachment to your home, to be able to imagine THEIR things in it, and to visualize the house as THEIR house.
Therefore, if you are hoping as most sellers do, to sell your home quickly, schedule a quick walk through the house with your real estate agent to help you to identify any areas that may have missed the home staging procedure. There are employable experts in the field of 'home staging' but it is also something that you can achieve easily with a little advice from your agent. It is not very expensive, or troublesome, and it only requires that a few simple rules be followed.
Being aware that you can make a difference by home staging is the first step. Its only when you accept the positive impact you can make on your buyers' emotions, that you will feel motivated to prepare your home as a show place. The buyer will not want to feel that he or she is intruding in your space, and home staging helps this feeling to dissipate.
In trying to sell a house, we are really attempting to make someone else want it for their own. Therefore we must allow them to visualize it with a view to it becoming their home. This means that they do not want to see your kids' latest art work on the fridge door, or granny's faded family portrait hanging in the hall.
Any religious or cultural artifacts which may deter others from feeling comfortable in your house should be removed. It will also be helpful to have some of your husband's golf trophies packed up in advance, and get them out of the way too.
The personal ornaments and photos that you so proudly display must be packed into boxes, thus exposing clear and clutter-free surfaces that will make your home look more spacious - and more like a show home. Remove your DVDs and take most of the books from your shelves. Apply the same de-personalizing rules to the bedrooms (teenagers will NOT like this idea!)
In the bathroom, do not have any shampoo bottles showing, or toothbrushes or baby's training potty! Think show home! Spend a few dollars on a couple of plug in deodorizers so that you know the bathroom and the hall will always smell nice.
In the living room, keep all the side lamps on and if you have wooden floors, remove the rugs and show it off. If your living room feels overcrowded put an armchair in the garage and make more space. Play low volume easy listening music.
In the kitchen, fix any dripping taps and have the appliances sparkling clean. They will look newer. Check the caulking around the taps. Remove those fridge magnets and tuck toasters etc in a cupboard. Empty counter tops give a suggestion of more counter top space.
Finally - have you checked for curb appeal? Ask your real estate agent for advice on this. Have you washed the windows and swept the driveways? Removed your garbage cans? As you open the front door will the smell of smoke or wet dogs waft out to greet your prospective buyers? A no-no! Remove all coats from hooks and the stair rail and all shoes from the front door.
Smile; now you are ready.
