The Insider's Guide To Selling Your Home By Owner- Rocio Fausto I | Page 25

Chapter 3

10 Tips for Staging
Your Home
You can hire someone to do much of the hard labor for you, but
there are some things that you alone can handle.

Solid Tip # 1: Spotless
is the name of the game.
It is vital to do a thorough, deep cleaning of your home. It
works for people selling their car — they get more money that
way — and it will work for you.
By deep cleaning, I mean you should do the following:
De-clutter: Begin with de-cluttering. Here’s the standard
rule of thumb: go through your home and get rid of 50% of your
belongings.
Items like photographs, highly personalized items, out-ofseason clothes, random junk and excessive furniture — these all
need to go.
Now, don’t get upset. You don’t have to throw the stuff out.
Donate it. Sell it at a yard sale. Give it away. Someone can
use what you don’t need. And for precious items (i.e. family
photos), put them into a safe, offsite storage location. Once you
de-clutter — Wow! How much roomier and nicer your home
feels.
The goal here is to depersonalize the home so potential
buyers can envision themselves living there.
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