In San Diego, Super Bowl Weekend traditionally marks the start of our real estate spring buying season and it should come as not surprise to hear real estate agents telling you that buyer activity tends to tick higher at this time of the year.
Meanwhile, with mortgage rates still trolling near all-time lows and Congress debating a first-time homebuyer tax credit, 2009 may bring out even more buyers than we’ve seen in the past–or at least we hope so.
This dicey market, though, presents new challenges for home sellers who want to attract qualified buyers. It may not be enough to have a lovely home in Aviara or La Costa Greens, if you are having to compete against homes that have been professionally staged. And far better to meet or beat the competition when it comes to your home’s showing condition.
Quite simply, home staging is the process by which a homeowner re-organizes and re-presents his home to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.
Home staging is part-science, part-art, and part-psychology. Home buyers tend to judge homes within the first 8 seconds of seeing them so making a quality first impression can mean the difference between getting multiple bids, and just getting a lot of foot traffic.
The 4-minute video gives some quick-and-easy tips, including:
- Create more light in the home
- Clean up the closets and thin them out
- Remove the clutter from every room in the house
Even though San Diego home inventories are falling, supplies are still higher than in previous years. Home sellers wanting to stand out in a crowd may want to consider staging their homes to help them sell more quickly.
Staged homes sell for as much as 17% more money and as much as 40% faster than non-staged ones.
Those figures should compel us all to consider staging a home–and it’s probably not much different than detailing a car prior to putting it on the market.