Enticing Potential Buyers to Your Home

You’ve been waiting for the market to improve to list your home for sale. Now you’re ready to hire a Realtor and take the next step. But before that “For Sale” sign goes in your front yard, take a good look around your home and make sure you will be showing it off to its best advantage.

Enticing potential buyers into viewing your home depends on curb appeal for the exterior and a clean, uncluttered look on the interior. It sometimes can be worth going the extra mile to have your home professionally staged. Here are a few tips that will increase the foot traffic in your home while creating a beautiful space that will result in a quicker, more lucrative sell.

Kathy Gyselinck is Executive Vice President for Southeast Mortgage

Make Your House Photogenic

It seems that you can judge a house by its cover. Since nine out of 10 homebuyers begin their search online, making a visually stunning first impression is necessary to attract buyers to view your home in person. Many buyers won’t visit your home if the pictures are poor quality, don’t show every room in the house and front and back views of the exterior, according to MSN.

Realtors recommend having a few personal items in rooms to make for livelier photos. Take pictures at twilight, when the light coming through the windows matches interior levels and creates a natural glow. Lastly, if a room is empty, provide an item for scale such as a chair.

Enhance Your Home’s Curb Appeal

If homebuyers can’t imagine pulling into the driveway every day, they are most likely not even going to step inside.  Enhancing your curb appeal is one of the most important steps you need to take when selling your home. Potential buyers will critique everything from the dirty mailbox to neglected flowerbeds to recycling bins strewed on the lawn. Seemingly small exterior details can be forgotten when you’re working on enhancing the interior so attention to detail is vital.

Create a polished charm that will enchant potential buyers from the curb.  Plant new flowers, touch up peeling paint on the garage and re-stain your porch, if needed.  When you think your home is ready to be shown, ask a neighbor or friend to provide a more objective view and (gently!) point out any exterior flaws that can be improved.

Consider Home Staging

Home sellers are advised to depersonalize their home by hiding any photographs or memorabilia because it can be hard for a potential buyer to picture themselves in your home if it’s filled with photos and other evidence of your family. However, there are benefits to personalizing your home in other ways to attract a specific pool of potential buyers. If your location is a hot spot for young couples searching for their first home, play up those strengths.  Show the possibilities of entertaining guests with wine glasses set up in the living room, place takeout menus in the kitchen and brighten up a potential nursery room with good lighting. These are a few things professional stagers may do. They may even rearrange your furniture to make the rooms look larger.

Putting extra effort in your home via staging can sell your home for a record price in record time. Gary Keller, Chairman of Keller Williams Realty, said on “Good Morning America”, “Price gets your interest. Staging gets your offers.” If you are wary of the practice and need assistance, professional home staging companies are opening around the country that identify potential buyers’ identities and implement home renovations for clients. Eloquently stated in HGTV’s Front Door, “If you do your marketing homework, you’ll be able to touch one person’s heart, which is worth much more than simply not offending 50 potential buyers.”