Buying A Home
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Staging our Home
We are listing our home in the next few weeks as my husband is being relocated in July. I want to make sure everything looks great and is move-in ready for buyers so we can increase our chances of an offer. We have pretty much no clutter, neutral colors, open floor plan, etc so I think it looks okay. I have seen homes staged where the dining room table is set, the mantle has fresh flowers, there are home made cookies out, etc. Do you think this makes any difference? Our home is very "homey" but I am not sure if there is a purpose in doing these things? Let me know! Thank you in advance!
Re: Staging our Home
I think staging in those ways for photos is nice but might not be needed for every visit. It might be something to consider when you have an open house or special realtors open house.
We have been through lots of homes and none of them have been staged in that way.
I think the most important thing is to ensure the home doesn't look cluttered or dirty. Remember, that normal dirty to you like dust on a table or even pet hair can really turn some people off. I'm not implying your home is dirty by any means but I know for example we had friends over the other weekend and it wasn't till I had a friend in our master bath, because the other bath was used, that I realized how dusty everything was. When you live there everyday, you just don't notice as much.
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I always liked houses better when there was food. It made me think the sellers had it together. Just make sure you leave a sign that says "A Treat for Hungry House Hunters!" or something like that. ("Please Help Yourselves" works as well).
I had our dining table set with the cloth napkins and everything when our apartment was shown. This might sound stupid, but I thought communicating that people with good taste currently reside here would make others find it more desirable. The fourth person who saw it took over our lease and three of the four who saw it complimented on the decorating.
One place we saw on a Saturday also had a sign up that said "Please leave the lights on - there are several showings today". I thought it was brilliant because it subtly indicated there was a lot of interest.
That's smart but I would wonder if some home hunters would think they were just saying that and not being truthful. I know we felt that way a few times with different houses.
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In this case the house was a tad overpriced but was in an AWESOME area with very few houses on the market so I knew there would be a lot of showings. They had it at $490 and I think if it had been closer to $450 it would have sold the first weekend on the market. It was under contract in three weeks and I'm curious to see what it settles for.
Thanks for the advice ladies! I think I will definately do it for the pictures then see what my agent says from there. I am obsessive about dusting and cleaning the wood floors so I think we would pass most peoples clean test;)
The idea about a note for the food is good too and the one about a note to leave on the light for multiple showings is fabulous! Very sneaky, as a buyer it would make me think about being quicker with my actions if I was interested.
I am very stressed about selling and this was very helpful!!
One thing I noticed was if the sellers had some kind of home fragrance out-like Glade plug-ins, etc. A couple of houses use the cinnamon kind, so it smelled a little like baked goods. I did like that.
Also, I did notice when they would turn on the fireplace when they left. It was a nice touch. The main thing though is clutter. Try to keep that to a minimum. I know it can be hard, but we went into houses where the people were clearly more comfortable with a large amount of clutter than we were. It made the house seem so much smaller.
I don't know if I would recommend going that far. I'm sure it looked nice and made the home feel cozy, but how long did they have to leave it on between leaving and you arriving? And did your realtor/agent turn it off before you left? An unattended fire in the house could be pretty dangerous.
As a buyer, I cannot stress enough how important it is to stage for the photos at the very least. There were so many online listings where the rooms were cluttered (not necessarily dirty - but things like the kitchen counters had every inch covered with small appliances. It takes 2 seconds to put your toaster away so that the buyer can actually see what the counters look like underneath). In this online age, your internet listing is going to be the first impression - make it good! Also, take photos of your house. That sounds like a no-brainer, but there have been soooooooo many listings I've seen that had 3 photos of the home, and 10 photos of the lot and surroundings. It makes me think the owner has something to hide concerning the actual structure and in no way lured me in. In fact, it was a turnoff and made me not want to visit that home in person.
Our fireplace is wood burning so we certainly can't leave that burning:)
I definately agree with making sure there are plenty of photos and interior photos. When we were buying the homes with the most pictures always caught my eye and agree that less interior pictures made me feel like they were hiding something.
Thanks for all the advice ladies!
Also, take photos of your house. That sounds like a no-brainer, but there have been soooooooo many listings I've seen that had 3 photos of the home, and 10 photos of the lot and surroundings. It makes me think the owner has something to hide concerning the actual structure and in no way lured me in. In fact, it was a turnoff and made me not want to visit that home in person.
ITA. More pictures is generally better. Of the houses I've seen, when there wasn't a picture of the kitchen or the bathroom, it was because they were run down or ugly. So now when people omit pics of a room, I assume it means that they don't want you to see it. As the seller you might think "oh, who wants to see another bathroom", but the buyer wants to know what it looks like. So take at least one good pic of each room and pics from several angles of the the more "important" rooms (like the kitchen, family room, master).
I agree that the more pictures the better. When looking at realtor.com I always sort by the # of photos and I always assume homes with only a few photos are ugly;)
My to-do list in the next two weeks is making me anxious! Selling a home is no joke, hopefully we can get rid of it though cause I really have no interest in being a long distance landlord!
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