View Your House Through Buyer-Colored Glasses

If you've lived in your house for a long time and have raised your children and created wonderful holiday (and everyday) memories there, there is a good chance that you will not see your house clearly when it comes time to stage it to sell. Just as we see our beloveds through rose-colored glasses, minimizing the negatives while maximizing the positives, so we see our home. But when it's time to sell, it's time to take off those rose-colored glasses. Put on the buyer-colored glasses and really look at the house as an asset to be liquidated, not as a warm and personal home-environment.

This can be a difficult exercise, but I believe it is a necessary one if you are going to be able to dispassionately assess the strengths and weaknesses of the house and stage it neutrally but effectively.

Here is a handy list of items that we might overlook as happy homeowners but really need to focus on as determined house sellers:

• Keep the lawn trimmed and leaves raked
• Clean up bed lines
  
• Bleach or pressure wash the driveway
• Sand and repaint trim
  
• Wash the walls if necessary (You might even see that you need to paint)
• Polish or change out door knobs
• If you have wood floors, make sure they are in good condition
• Keep entry way swept and clean at all times
• Clean scuff marks off floors
• Clean and seal all grout
  
• Polish countertops
• Polish faucets and bath fixtures; change out if they are dated
• Make sure all window treatments are in good repair, not faded and dust/dirt free
• Corral kids' toys in one contained area

These are just a few ideas, based on some of the things that we did when we successfully sold our house. For more information, please visit I CAN Sell This House.

Home Staging for Dummies

The Dummies series are fantastic resources. They are written by experts in their fields, and they are written in plain language that not only tells you what to do, but how and why to do it. Written by two renowned experts in the home staging world, Christine Rae and Jan Saunders Maresh, Home Staging for Dummies is a book that you need. I am not, nor do I plan to become, a home stager. I staged our house successfully for sale because I knew I had to. I read some information on the Internet, and I consulted with my Realtor about my best course of action. Of course, our house was on the market for less than a month, and our whole selling journey went very smoothly.

For those of you who are having some difficulties, or for those of you who need a little more inspiration and how-to guidelines for staging, I am certain that you will benefit from the information in this book. Do not get me wrong: of course I'd like you to buy my book, but I CAN Sell This House, Secrets to Selling Quickly in a Buyers' Market provides a how-to manual from everything from pinpointing your reasons for selling to finding a Realtor on through to what to do at closing. Although there is a helpful chapter or two on staging, the stage is not the focus of the book. So, I cannot in good conscience say, "You will be an expert home stager after reading my book," I can say, "You will be an expert after reading Home Staging for Dummies."

Whether you buy it because you need to stage your own house or because you want to stage other peoples' houses, do buy it. You will not be sorry.

Staging a Guest Room

I think that staging a guest room might be one of the easiest staging jobs to do. Basically, the guest room should look like a room in an upscale hotel or bed and breakfast. The little touches that make these establishments sometimes command upwards of $300/night can also help convince your prospective buyer family that "this house"="oasis."

And it doesn't take much.

• rich, neutral walls
• coordinated fabrics
• a lush throw draped over a chair or even the foot of the bed
• lots of pillows
• generic but warm art on the walls
  
• a basket of new magazines

Some extra tips that won't break the bank.

• Hang a cozy bathrobe in the closet on a padded hanger
• a bottle of linen spray on the nightstand
• replace "cool white" bulbs with warm light bulbs
  
• an orchid or other beautiful exotic plant or flowers on the dresser

Get inspiration from the pages of decorating magazines and travel magazines. Remember, you want the room to appeal to as broad a spectrum of people as possible, so keep it minimal without being cold, and keep it neutral without being austere. And always, always, do your staging with the intent that you CAN sell this house.

For more information or to request free sample chapters of I CAN Sell This House: Secrets to Selling Quickly in a Buyers' Market, please visit I CAN Sell This House.

New Year, New Attitude

I hope your house hasn't been on the market for months, but if it has, rather than worrying about all the time it has been for sale, consider the new year a new start for the listing. Know you can sell. What you've been doing thus far is obviously not working, so take a tour of the house and look at it objectively and with fresh eyes. What can you do differently with the staging or marketing that will help your house to stand out from the pack in the new year.

You can choose to be depressed that you haven't sold, or you can choose to make a fresh start. Change your attitude, change up what you're doing, and get that house sold. Make sure you "de-holiday" your house quickly and put all of the decorations in storage. You won't need them again in this house, anyway. Think about these inexpensive ideas for staging:

• stain the deck
• pressure wash the driveway
• clean the windows
• get a new welcome mat
• add some lovely seasonal potted plants in the bathrooms
• put down new kitchen mats
• change out your dining table stage to reflect the season

Remember, everything you do, do with the express intention of finding your buyer family and selling that house.

For more information or to get free sample chapters of I CAN Sell This House: Secrets to Selling Quickly in a Buyers' Market or to order the ebook along with the Bonus organizational tools, please visit I CAN Sell This House.