Regardless of the real estate market conditions, there are two keys to selling a house quickly. It must be well-presented and priced right. So if you are thinking about putting your home on the market, how do you ensure you get those two things right?
Well, that’s easy.
First, you find two well-informed, respected, and trusted experts…a professional home stager to help you with presentation, and a real estate agent or realtor to help you with pricing. Second, you listen to and follow their advice! They are the experts, after all. And they have something very important that most homeowners don’t have when it comes time to sell…Objectivity.
The definition of objective, according to Merriam-Webster.com on-line dictionary, is “expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices or interpretations”. Let’s face it; most of us are not objective about our own homes or the things in them. It’s far more than just a structure with a roof and walls that keeps us safe from the elements.
It’s our Home.
We have special memories that we associate with this place. We raised a family here. We invested time and money and energy fixing it up, putting our personalities into it. We attach importance and value to those memories. And that’s ok, because those memories are important and do have emotional value. Just don’t expect potential buyers to attach financial value to your memories. Your house isn’t worth more to someone else because you were happy living there. It’s only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it at any given point in time. Your real estate agent has the information, resources, and expertise to determine what that price is without personal bias.
The same holds true for the way our homes are presented. Our furniture, accessories, artwork, the way things are arranged…it represents who we are and what we love. It’s hard to be objective about how to present your home for sale because you are dealing with your own things and your own personal style. You may love the way your home looks and it may function perfectly for the way your family lives, but a professional stager knows that living and selling are very different. The goals of decorating to live and staging to sell are very different as well. A professional stager will look at your things and your space objectively and guide you on what to use and how to present the space to maximize its appeal to potential buyers. Maintaining that buyer perspective is critical to getting the home sold.
So when it’s time to sell, remember the importance of being objective about presentation and pricing. Listen to the advice of your professional stager and real estate agent or realtor, and they will guide you successfully through the process of selling your home quickly. And you can get on with the important business of creating new memories in your next home!
