You’re selling your home and you want to make sure to attract buyers. Not only do you want to get them through the door, but you want to make an impression when they enter your home. You know you need an effective MLS listing, and you know you require professional-looking photographs to make your home “pop”, but what else can you do?

Staging your home has become a multi-million dollar business and with the proliferation of countless home improvement and real estate television shows, most of us understand the necessity of staging one’s home to entice more potential buyers.

The following are essential tips to ensure the successful staging your home:

Get Rid of the Clutter

Most importantly, you need to not only clear away any papers, gizmos, and gadgets on all the flat surfaces in your home, but also clear away any furniture that’s cluttering up your space. You will want to ensure that you keep things minimal to enhance the amount of space you have and not the furniture within that space.

Group Your Furniture

A common misconception is to push all the furniture back to encircle the room and create more space with the centre each room. What actually works better, is to create multiple, small groupings of furniture throughout your home, with lots of space around each grouping. This enhances the space as a whole, opening your home into one large space instead of breaking your home into a series of small spaces.

Depersonalize

A potential home buyer must be able to imagine their own belongings in your space, so pack away your collection of tchotchkes, the candid photos of your last vacation, and the sports memorabilia on the wall. Depersonalize and keep the personal doo-dads and decorations to the bare minimum.

Clean Your Kitchen

Not only should you ensure your kitchen is clear from dirty dishes and leftovers, but also ensure that everything presents itself to be in working order, take the magnets off the fridge, and clear the counters of all the small appliances that add clutter and wires to your clean look. Also make sure to wipe down the front of all appliances and wash (or vacuum) your floors.

Transform a Useless Space

If you have an area of your home that’s gathering junk or just in transition, turn it into a valuable space with the addition of a chair and a lamp for reading, or something else that takes up little space, but adds value. You want to portray every inch of your home as usable space!

Light it Up!

Lighting is essential for more than just photographs! Good lighting creates a welcoming ambience that makes a potential buyer feel at home already. Go with soft lighting in the form of soft lamps to entice folks into the room or a chandelier to impress.

These six essential tips will give you an excellent start to staging your home for a successful sale. For more tips, please see our reports for preparing your home.