Your Showing: Beyond The Basics

Your Showing: Beyond The Basics

Cleaning is perhaps the most crucial part of a successful showing. When communicating the value and uniqueness of your home, dirty clothes in the laundry room and stains in the carpet will cut you off at the knees every time. However, while most people think to clean a property and remove clutter from areas of the house, there are some ways that a seller can go the extra mile to interest a potential buyer.

It is important to remember that when you put your home on the market, you are entering into a competition with every other home for sale in your general price range in your area. That means that anything you can do to set yourself apart from the rest of the homes in your area will pay dividends as potential buyers think more about your home than the others out there.

When a potential buyer arrives for your showing, often they have already been to another potential new home and may be on their way to another after yours. During such a cluttered schedule that is typical for most real estate transactions, giving yourself an edge through an exceptional showing can certainly help you secure a deal in the long run.

The Lived-In Blank Slate

When a potential buyer enters your home, that person's thoughts immediately go to how they would fit in this home and how their family would fit in the home. If you have decorated your home in all bright pink walls, that might be just what you want to live in, but it will disrupt the ability for a buyer to picture living in that property.

Avoid this by making sure that your home balances the feeling of a blank slate but still keeping the feeling of home that enhances a buyer's impression of the property. They want to imagine living in the home but they don't want to imagine it with nothing to go on. This follows all the way down to closets and cabinets. People will open your cabinets, so be prepared to make sure that what they see when they do won't turn them off of your home.

Your Furnishings Are Merely Accents

Chances are, you will not be leaving your furniture behind when you move out of your property. A potential buyer will be bringing in entirely new furniture with a new color scheme and may even paint all of the interior walls a specific favorite color. Simply put, the buyer is not buying the way you decorated the property so don't make your decorations the star of the show.

All of the contest of your home should be geared towards maximizing the way the architectural elements of the property show. If one of your big selling points is a breakfast nook, providing the furnishing for that breakfast nook can help a buyer picture having that as a part of daily life. However, if you have an incredibly expensive, ornate table, you will detract from the architecture and focus eyes on the furnishings.

Similarly, you can use this trick in reverse to hide some of the architectural shortcomings of your home. Perhaps a particular window trim is not contemporary enough but you don't want to spend the money to update it. Use a fancy window covering to draw attention away from that part of the property.

While cleaning and removing clutter from your home certainly make up the foundation of a positive showing, going the extra mile before a stranger even steps foot in your home can greatly increase your chances of selling the property quickly. By giving a potential buyer a somewhat generic presentation in the design that is used chiefly to accent the home itself, you will give yourself a leg up on the competition in your area and spur meaningful interest in your home.

This is another original article by Joe Lane, co-owner of The Lane Real Estate Team at http://www.joelane.com/. Are you looking for an experienced Tri City WA Real Estate agency? With 20 years of service based, business experience, Joe and Colleen Lane work hard to serve home buyers and sellers for the Tri Cities of Washington's Kennewick, Richland, Pasco, and surrounding areas.

Joe Lane
co-owner, Lane Real Estate Team