Sell Your House Quickly by Staging

No one can argue that deciding to sell your home is a heart wrenching decision. Unless you are amongst the few that like jumping from place to place, odds are you have spent quite a bit of time turning your house into your "home". Your precious weekends have been used painting each room, mulling through furniture showrooms, and creating a place on this planet that is all about you and your family. Now the time has come to leave. But the misconception that you face is that merely putting a for sale sign in the yard will sell the property. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In today's fallen housing market, the amount of time a property sits on the market can be a death sentence. The longer you wait for buyers creates an opportunity to offer a lower price. The way to get your home noticed fast and sold even faster is to market your home to the buyer. This redecorating for the means of selling is called staging. This secret amongst the real estate world has helped endless property flippers move their inventory even in the worst of housing markets.

If you have never heard of staging, you are probably wondering how this can help me. Staging changes the way your look at your home. The moment you decide to sell your property, the way you see your home should change to that of a buyer. Before hiring an agent and sticking a sign in the yard, there is alot of work to be done. From neutralizing the paint to depersonalizing the decor, things must change in your home to get the greatest return. Staging has be known to bring in offers above the asking price after the seller received multiple offers. Now there is no guarantee, but it is in your best interest to keep your options open.

I myself have used staging to give me huge returns. My first home was a condo that I was selling instead of keeping as a rental property. I learned how to stage the property after hearing about it from a friend that was flipping properties with great success. I had made the decision to sell the condo myself so I could save money, but there were alot of condos for sale in my development. I took about 6 weeks painting and repairing the little things I had ignored for years. Rented a storage unit and moved alot of my things out to make the space appear larger. I put a for sale sign in the window and was on my way. Two weeks later I was under contract and the buyer wanted to close as soon as possible so he could get renters in by year end. I thought this was just a rare case, but I was wrong. I have used these same steps for assisting friends and family to sell homes with great success.

My last testiment to staging was just last year (2007). I was moving out of state and started the steps to stage my home in January so I could get it on the market once it was Spring. My next door neighbors were trying to sell, too. They listed their home prior to mine so they could get a head start on the market and hoping to edge me out of a sale. The homes were similar in size and details, but the big difference was they just hired an agent and put the sign in the yard. Mine was listed in March, under contract beginning of April and closed in May. Their home is still on the market right now and they have lowered their price 4 times!