Crowded open houses and frequent in-person showings to sell homes have taken a back seat to online selling avenues during the pandemic. Though some in-person selling tools are coming back around as things slowly open back up, many people are still heavily relying on conducting most of their home searching online. Your home’s online listing is now more important than ever and appealing to buyers online is going to help get your home sold faster. Your home needs a “screen appeal.”
So how do you accomplish “screen appeal” that will have online home shoppers interested in taking a closer look at your home so that you can get it sold? Read on to find out.
Stage Your Home
What is home staging? It is the act of setting up or decorating each room in your home to help buyers see the home’s usefulness and imagine themselves living there. It is a proven fact that excellent staging gets a home sold faster.
The first step to staging a home is to get rid of all clutter and personal items. Have kid toys and pet items organized and tucked away out of sight save for a few decorative items in a space where it makes sense to highlight them, like in a non-formal family room. Take stacks of magazines and extra knick-knacks and throw out what you don’t want to move and box up the rest. This is also the time to box up pictures and mementos until you are in your new home. The less stuff to fill a room the more of a neutral and spacious feeling you will create to appeal to a larger number of buyers.
Next, take a look at the layout of your furniture. You want it to optimize and showcase the usable space in the room and of course to look great in photos. Take a test snap shot of the room how it is with all of the clutter and personal items gone. How does the room look on screen? What do you love most about the usefulness of the room? Is it showing through? If not do some rearranging.
Now that the space is clutter free and the furniture shows how great and useful the room is , it is time to get everything spotless. Dust and wipe everything down, fluff those pillows, straighten out bedsheets, and vacuum the rug. When that is done make sure every light fixture has a fresh bulb and is turned on to bring in as much light as possible for great photos.
Related: 4 Outdoor Projects to Enjoy Staying a Home
For Empty Homes Try Virtual Staging
If the home you are selling is currently empty and ready for someone to move in, you can try a few things:
Leaving the home empty to show it is move-in ready. This will work okay, but remember a staged home highlights how it can be used and will sell faster.
You can purchase or rent furniture to stage the home. For help with this, it is a good idea to hire a professional stager they have plenty of expertise to know just the right pieces to pick and how to get them. This can cost a large sum of money.
You can opt for virtual staging. This is a process of adding furniture digitally through technology to your photos of empty space. Since the distancing measures of the lockdown virtual staging services have come a long way. You can either hire help to virtually stage your home or use a DIY app or program.
More: How to keep your home ‘show-ready’
Don’t Forget Outside Curb Appeal
The first photo on your online listing should be of the complete front outside view of your home. To make this picture appealing and cause a buyer to want to click on the listing to get more pictures and info, clean up the front of your home and make sure the curb appeal is top-notch. Trim the landscaping, put some colorful pots by the door, make sure your exterior paint looks clean and fresh, etc.
Hire a Professional to Photograph and an Agent to List
Having the right help on your side is key to home selling success, especially when most of the selling process is online. Have a professional take your photos, you want them to be of high quality, clear, and showcase the right attributes of the home. When the photos are ready you want an expert agent to write up the listing and maybe add some extra features like a virtual tour. They will know how to point out the home’s most appealing features to pique a buyer’s interest.
