By Hazel Bridges from AgingWellness.org
4 Open House Tips that Real Estate Professionals Live By
An open house can be stressful. You’ve cleaned the house and put in the extra time and money to brighten every room. You’re hopeful that a buyer will see what you see in your house and make an offer. Remember that an open house is a great opportunity to create the mystique of competition and leave a lasting impression on house hunters! Sonoma County Realtors Peg & Jeremy King offer some key tips to keep in mind while staging for your open house.
1. Preparation Is Key
While you might think that your house will sell whether you prepare properly or not, getting all your ducks in a row greatly impacts how quickly your house sells and the final selling price. Despite some common misconceptions, preparing your home for sale really is important. This includes decluttering your home, removing personal photographs, and deep-cleaning wherever you can.
Your home’s listing price is an important factor to get people in the door. Your agent should provide you with comparable listings for houses that have recently sold in your neighborhood. This will give you an idea regarding what price your home could go for and will help you create a pricing strategy with your agent.
Creating curb appeal doesn’t have to be expensive, but you definitely want to make an impression on prospective buyers as they drive up. With a little planning and money, you can add quite a lot of charm to your home.
When thinking ahead to the open house, plan to have a handout of some kind for the attendees to leave with. You can use a pamphlet template online to create a memorable and great-looking design to drive interest in your home. It can help prospective buyers during their tour of your home and remind them of it after the fact. Peg and Jeremy King love to provide property flyers, folding brochures, and even little lists of the home’s amenities and what the garden produces!
2. Sprucing up the Interior
An open house requires more than just cleaning the house to have people over. If the idea of messing around with buckets of paint does not appeal to you, you can still brighten the walls and modernize the look of the rooms with wallpaper. Today’s wallpaper is easier to apply and easier to remove. You’ll want to repeat the process when you move into your new home. Thanks to online tools you can even create your own designs to truly personalize your new place.
Including nice and inexpensive wall art will also provide the home with a cozy feeling, allowing potential buyers to see themselves sipping their morning coffee or sitting down for a family meal there.
3. Add some nature
If you aren’t a green thumb you might want to invest in some house plants and even potted plants to place around the front of the home. Ask your greenhouse gardener for suggestions about which plants will be easy to care for, inexpensive, and will also make a good impression.
Even a bouquet of fresh flowers in a nice vase will really bring nature into the home and give it a fresh feeling.
4. Air it out
Every home has a smell, and we’re all just used to our own. Be careful not to go crazy with air fresheners, scented candles, or potpourri. Too much perfume in the air can leave a bad impression and make it seem like you’re hiding something. If you’ve got the time to wash the bedspreads and curtains, by all means, do it, but a lot can be achieved by simply airing the place out, changing your HVAC filter, taking out the trash, bathing any pets, and tossing their pet beds in the laundry.
Contact Peg and Jeremy King for all Your Real Estate and Open House Needs
Navigating an open house might seem overwhelming and it can be a lot to prepare for. However, it can be a critical first step to receiving a good offer on your home. With a little bit of knowledge, and with a seasoned real estate expert by your side, you’ll tackle your first open house like a pro.
This article was brought to you by Peg & Jeremy King, consistently one of Sonoma County’s Top Producers since 1978, a Top-10 Sales Team in North America, & in the top 1% of Coldwell Banker agents worldwide. With over 50 years of combined experience selling property in the North Bay and Sonoma County, Peg & Jeremy have a wealth of knowledge in all types of real estate markets, including our current changing market and its challenges. For more information, please contact us today!