Selling Your Home in a Slow Salt Lake Property Market

When the real estate market takes a turn for the worse, your home can be sitting on the market for a long time. One of the best ways to ensure that your home sells as quickly as possible is to ensure that it is correctly staged, when competing with other sellers you want to your home to stand out above the rest.

Spruce Up The Outside

When people think about staging their home, they usually think about the inside of their home. The truth is staging the outside of your home is probably more important than the inside. The first impression that a buyer gets of your home is either from an exterior picture or from looking at your home while passing in the car. If your homes exterior does not create a good impression, the buyer may choose not to view your property, so your potential sale falls at the first hurdle.  In order to entice the buyer into your home, you must make sure that the exterior looks as good as possible. The garden needs to be neat and tidy, make sure there are no weeds and that the grass is in good shape. If possible, consider buying some flowers / plants that are in bloom. The roof, gutter, and paint on the exterior of your property should be in good shape.

Declutter and Depersonalize

Do you have lots of family photos and personal items displayed in your home? The chances are that buyers don’t want to see them, they want to be able to visualize how your rooms will look with their possessions, which they may find it difficult with all that clutter. The solution to this is to declutter, remove your personal items, and thin out the rest.  Make sure surfaces have the minimum amount of items, especially in the kitchen where too many items will make it look like you lack workspace. When you declutter don’t just address the rooms you live in, remember the garage and the basement. Remember regardless of the room, less clutter means more space, at least that’s the impression you are trying to portray to the buyer.

Fix Problems

You know that squeaky door you have been meaning to oil, well now is the time to fix it. Go through you home and take care of all those little imperfections and problems that buyers will spot. Remember don’t give a buyer any reason, no matter how small to choose another home rather than yours.

Define a Rooms Purpose

Do you have rooms whose defined purpose is not clear? For example, are you using a bedroom as an office, or is the dining room full of gym equipment? You need to let buyers know the original purpose of each room, a dining room should be setup as a dining room; a bedroom needs to look like a bedroom.

What’s Hot and What’s Not

When staging your home it is a good idea to find out what the latest decorating styles are, and the best to do this is to take a tour of some model homes. If you target a large new home development (for example, Daybreak Utah) you will be able to view many different model homes, each of which have been professionally staged. As a general rule of thumb neutral is best, if you have some bright colored walls or carpet you may want to consider redecorating.

Clean

The last step is to give your home a good cleaning, and I don’t just mean dusting and vacuuming. Clean the oven, stovetop, cupboards (inside and out), windows, and everything else you can think of.