If you are about to put your Honolulu home up for sale and you are concerned that you might not get your asking price or that your house might take a lot longer to sell than you had in mind you may want to consider staging your house. Staging is where you set up your house to get an immediate interest in it from the buyer. You can do this yourself or you can hire someone who does it for a living. If you want to hire someone then your real estate agent should be able to recommend someone. It isn't difficult however, so you will easily be able to do it yourself. Just remember that it involves both the inside and the outside of your house. Here are three important things to consider when staging the inside of your house:
1. Get rid of the clutter. This may be the absolute most important thing that you can do when trying to sell your house. Everything that you do not absolutely need should be removed from the house and stored, preferably somewhere away from the property. You do not want your house to be empty, but it should be closer to empty than full. With fewer things in your house it will look cleaner and appear to be bigger.
2. Closets need to be organized. Go through your closets like you are obsessed with them. Everything should be perfectly sorted and arranged. Your closets when properly organized will appear to be much bigger and big closets help to sell a house.
3. Forget that you live there. Remove anything that personalizes the house to you and your family. Take down family photos and consider hanging some artwork. Remove all of those things you have stuck to your refrigerator. You want potential buyers to be able to easily picture themselves living in the house. That is easier for them if there are no reminders that someone else lives there. After you have finished staging the inside of your house it is time to move on to the outside. A beautiful interior will do you no good if the outside of the house makes a horrible first impression. Here are three important considerations for the outside of your house:
1. Go stand outside near the street and take a good long look at your house. It needs to make a great first impression if you are going to get people interested in it. How does the landscaping look? Does the house need to be painted? You only get one chance at a first impression.
2. Stand in front of your house as if you were going to reach out and unlock the front door. This is the point of view potential buyers will have while they are waiting for the agent to let them into the house. What do you see? Anything that doesn't belong needs to be removed. There should be no weeds, no dead plants, nothing hiding behind the shrubs, and no stains where the gutters or drainpipes leak when it rains.
3. Clean up the back yard. It isn't as important as the front of the house and it isn't going to be the thing that pushes someone into buying, but it can be the thing that costs you the sale. It needs to be cleaned up and manicured just like the front. Follow these six tips for a successful staging of your house. Successful staging will result in you selling your house more quickly and getting a much better price. You will be smiling widely as that check is handed over to you.