Selling your home? Here are some camera-ready staging tips

With home buyers’ white-hot spotlight focused on online listing photos, there’s never been more riding on how your house looks.

Wall paint colors, flooring material, upgrades in the kitchen and bathrooms, or lack thereof, it’s all going to show up in the photos. After you take care of all the big projects, are you willing to tackle more to improve the chances of selling quickly and for as much money as possible? As they say, the devil is in the details.

Here are a few ideas to put the finishing touches on your marketing masterpiece.

Bigger is better

Regular readers will remember previous advice to remove the little things around your house – those little collectibles, accessories and the collections of little family pictures on the walls. If you intend to display these in your new residence, now is the perfect time to pack them up and get them ready for the moving van. Or find another home for them. Regardless, they need to be removed and replaced with bigger, more impersonal versions of themselves.

Replace the 20-year retrospective of family portraits over the couch in the family room with a single, gigantic abstract piece of mass-produced art in the color scheme that matches the family room décor. Repeat this process over each bed, on the picture wall in the living room and dining room, and pick a smaller version for each bathroom. These canvasses can often be found at retailers such as Hobby Lobby, Home Goods, At Home or online.

Replace the small pill bottles, blown glass animals, Pez dispensers and cut glass candy dishes scattered throughout the house with larger, more generic options such as white ceramic horseheads, large fake white orchids in neutral-colored pots and large metal or wooden lanterns.

Neutralize unmatched colors

You may find, now that the formerly forest green living room walls have been repainted a calm, pale beige and the faded Tahitian blue carpet has been replaced a creamy white version (to make your rooms appear larger,) those dark green plaid armchairs and black leather couch don’t match so well.

Before you resort to all new furniture or reupholster the chairs and couch, try slipcovers. Wayfair, Overstock and other online home décor stores will have many options to choose from, most priced fairly reasonably. Even if they don’t fit perfectly and are uncomfortable to sit on, they will serve the purpose of neutralizing the unflattering forest green and black for the emotionally appealing photos you will need to lure in qualified buyers.

And keep the receipts and leave the price tags on all the items. When the house sells, if you are still within the return timeframe, you can likely get a refund if you return them in the same condition as you purchased them.

Which means if this is your plan, keep Fido off the slipcovers.

Leslie Sargent Eskildsen is an agent with Realty One Group West. She can be reached at 949-678-3373 or leslie@leslieeskildsen.com.

Source: Orange County Register