Too many sellers make the mistake of saying, “My house is excellent as it is! Anyone would love to live here!”  But you have to see each room through the eyes of a buyer… in this market, you need every edge you can get.  The staging process, along with your REALTOR^®, helps make sure your house is the best-looking open house on the block.

You’ve probably heard the old tricks: replace all the bulbs with 100-watt brights and bake cookies whenever someone comes over so the house smells great, but there are three important steps to a real staging:

The first step is to remember why you bought the property.  Think about the features of your house that you fell in love with, and make sure that those stand out.  And if there is anything you wouldn’t like — old paint, a ratty piece of furniture, cluttered closets — get rid of it.

That leads us to the second step:  Clean, organize, and de-clutter everything!  This includes the insides of the closets, as prospective buyers take closet space seriously into consideration, and a well-organized closet often looks even larger than an empty one. 

The final step is to make it all look visually calming.  Walk through every room with your REALTOR^® and take an honest look at everything, from the furniture to the floors.  You may need to update appliances, or even change sheet rock.  The effort and money you put in to this process will make your home sell more quickly.

Most importantly, be tough during this process.  It’s hard to go through your house and criticize everything, so don’t take it as a denigration.  You’re just getting it ready for sale, and that means making your home into a blank palette that a potential buyer can imagine as his or her home.

Allyson Bernard comes from a family with a 50-year track record in New England Real Estate.  She is a Regional Vice President of the National Association of Realtors.