Many people ask me weekly “What do I need to do to sell my home?” Buyers purchase homes with emotion. So, one of the things you have to do is stage your home to capture emotions. There is a big difference between staging a house to sell and decorating a home. When you decorate you fill space with personal color and design that apeals to your taste. When you stage for selling you remove everything personal and try to make your space more of a blank canvas. A blank canvas allows the buyer to easily imagine themselves living in your home. You also want a blank canvas that appeals to the largest sector of buyer profiles. Yesterday I met with a family that had been trying to sell their home for 6 months. They had personally (not professionally) sponge painted two bedrooms. One was pink the other blue. They chose those colors because they had a boy and a girl. I advised them to neutralize the rooms. They told me their decorator said to leave the colors because they added charm and since it was a family neighborhood having colors that appeal to both sexes would be good for a sale. I told the homeowner that I disagreed with the decorator and her assumptions. I shared my concern and reminded them it is a buyers market where only 1 out or 14 homes sell and they are competing with new homes too. New homes do not use personal colors and they spend millions of dollars researching buyer preferences. Further more, even in a family neighborhood my experience is that the likelyhood of their buyer having both a boy and a girl that would appreciate their personal handsponged painted blue and pink walls was very narrow. To sell your home it needs to appeal to the maximum number of people. I was certain I was telling her truth that would help them sell their home but, I don’t think I will get this listing. They told me that they would have to get back to me. By their body language, they clearly didn’t like my answer.
What do you think? Spend $50.00 and take away the blue and pink walls or take the chance the perfect buyer will come through the door that would actually want someonelse’s art project on their walls?
In real estate there is a saying: “It is always best to be the first born, second wife and third REALTOR.”
Maybe they will call me back- you know what people say -“The third time’s the charm. I hate to loose.
Linda