With the busy spring-summer home-selling season fast approaching, I will be meeting with many sellers in the coming weeks, visiting their homes for the first time and drawing up a plan to market and sell the properties for the highest and best price possible.
As part of that plan, when I first walk through the doors, I look at your home the way a buyer would, but I am also looking at your home with 30 years of experience as a Realtor in the Ottawa market.
In that time, I’ve taken thousands of buyers into homes across the region. I’ve heard a lot of feedback about what causes people to fall in love with a property and what causes them to cringe, turn around and leave.
If you’re selling a home with me, this background helps me to come up with what we need to do to help you make that sale and get the best possible price in the current market.
This means not just giving your home a good cleaning, but also staging your space to give it the kind of ‘wow’ factor you see in home-design magazines.
In today’s competitive market, staging a home isn’t merely a nice option if you have the time. It’s crucial.
Buyers today spend hours searching the web and looking at photos to decide whether they even want to go and look at a property. The way your home looks is important. With all of my seller clients, I arrange for professional photographs that will be used in brochures and on websites. Before we take those photos, we want your property in showroom condition.
If you’d like an idea of the kind of look we are aiming for, have a look at a few properties in the “current listings” section of my website (www.nancybenson.com). A home doesn’t have to have expensive designer furniture and high-end fixtures to go over well with buyers, but you do have to be willing to consider some changes that can make a big difference.
For many years, as part of preparing a home, I have worked closely with a professional stager. Badr Gebara, owner of Ottawa’s Blu Dot Interiors (www.bludotinteriors.ca) works closely with me as we try to create the airy, spacious look that buyers love.
These changes aren’t complicated but can make a big difference. On average it might mean only about two weeks worth of work, but I’ve seen dramatic transformations. Homeowners are sometimes initially surprised by the changes that Badr and I suggest, but they understand when they see how much better their homes look once the work is finished.
“I have people crying and hugging me all the time and telling me they never realized their home could look so beautiful,” Badr says.
Remember that we’re on your side. If we make suggestions for changes, such as painting a neutral new colour over the bold orange or red that you chose for your dining room, don’t take it personally. We are not criticizing your taste. We are just making suggestions based on our experience with what average buyers respond to most favourably. Buyers don’t tend to like extremes in colours or décor.
As Badr explains, “When we are buying, we make a judgment on a home within the first 10 or 15 seconds of walking in. You’re just taking off your shoes but you are looking around and getting a first impression of whether this could be your new home. If you’re hit with a big amount of clutter, or a strong scent of pets, you can get turned off.”
Once Badr and I have gone through the property, we might give you a list of changes that we recommend in each room, and ask you to try to de-clutter the rooms and pack things in boxes before Badr or I return to continue the work.
If you are too busy to take on these chores, Badr and I will often pitch in, helping to pack things away neatly in boxes or moving some furniture to create a better flow. If we recommend painting and you don’t feel you have the time or skills to do a proper job, Badr has professional painters she works with regularly. We want to make the process as easy as possible for you.
To give you an understanding of what staging involves and why, here are the things that come up most often in staging a home for sale:
De-personalizing a space: This is often the first thing we do. When we live in a home for years, we naturally surround ourselves with a lot of personal things and family photos. When buyers are looking at your home, they want to imagine it as their own space.
“So we recommend removing things like any family photos from the walls, as well as any diplomas that would have your name on them and also large religious items, things like that,” says Badr.
“As we explain to sellers, once you decide to list your home and put it on the market, for that time period, it really is no longer your home. Buyers want to be able to think of it as their new home. When we explain this, sellers generally understand and they roll with it.”
De-cluttering: We all accumulate a lot of possessions over the years, and sometimes those things can slowly take over a room. So a big task with almost every property is de-cluttering and packing away things to make every room look clean and spacious. “People can’t envision their own things in a home if it’s filled with someone’s clutter,” Badr explains.
We will go through the rooms with you and give you an idea of what should be packed up and put away and what can be left as it is. Often the boxes can be stored in closets or storage rooms, but clients who don’t have a lot of storage space often decide to leave things with a friend or relative or rent a storage locker for the duration of the home-showing process.
“If these are things you will be taking with you to your next home but you really don’t need for your everyday living while you’re waiting to sell, these things can be in boxes, ready for the move and out of the way,” says Badr.
Occasionally this might also mean removing one or two pieces of furniture or an area rug from a room if we feel there is too much furniture for the space.
Re-arranging Furniture and Artwork: Badr will often make some minor changes to the placement of furniture, rugs and artwork that can make a big difference. Changing the arrangement of some chairs or a table can dramatically improve the flow of a room and make the best use of the space.
Badr also sometimes re-hangs art to better suit the wall. People sometimes have pieces that are too large, too small or are too high on a wall, or pieces that would look better grouped together.
In the photo accompanying this column, showing a stunning Byward Market condo that is one of my current listings, we already had a beautiful space, but Badr helped it look even more appealing, removing an area rug to better display the gleaming hardwood floors.
“We re-arranged the living room furniture and spaced the pieces out. We took away personal items, extra pieces of furniture and de-cluttered to open into the dining space, giving it a bright, spacious look,” Badr explains.
Filling an Empty Home: If you happen to be selling a unit that is already empty, as sometimes happens when an investor is selling a condo apartment they had been renting to a tenant, it is always a good idea to furnish it.
Badr has furniture, art, pillows and candles that we can use to furnish an empty space while it’s for sale.
“Buyers always find it easier to imagine their things in a property that is furnished. This is particularly important if you have a smaller-sized condo unit, because it is easier for the buyers to imagine their furniture. If a room is on the small side, you want people to see the kind of furniture that can fit there comfortably. People have a hard time visualizing what fits in a small room if it’s empty,” Badr says.
Eliminating Food or Pet Odours: “The scent of a home when people arrive is a big thing, and if you have three cats and people can only smell cats when they walk in to your house, that person will walk out the door,” says Badr.
“They might have a pet hair allergy, as I do. People love their pets and after a while they don’t notice the smells that a first-time visitors will notice. This can mean a really good cleaning of your home and getting rid of all the animal hair from the floors, furniture and baseboards. If you have family or friends where your pets can stay before a showing to keep the home clean, that can work well.”
Before open houses and showings, we also recommend that people don’t cook meals that would have very strong odours or spices that people might not like,” says Badr. On the other hand, as many people know, the smell of fresh-baked cookies or apple pie can be an appealing factor for buyers.
Other minor changes: Badr and I do not often recommend major expensive changes such as a complete renovation of a bathroom or kitchen. But there are smaller facelifts that are not expensive and can make a difference. “We might suggest changing a dated faucet or cabinet hardware for something more contemporary or replacing heavy curtains that block light with simpler blinds to give a room a more updated look,” says Badr.
Once Badr and I agree the work is done and your home is ready, we will bring in the photographer immediately to get the photos that we all hope will bring in the buyers. Badr and I work well together and over the years we have truly transformed numerous homes that our clients were proud to be both selling and presenting to friends and family.”
If you’d like to get in touch with me and hear what we can do with your home to prepare it for the market, you can contact me through my website (www.nancybenson.com) or by calling my office at 613-788-2556. I’d be happy to hear from you.
Cheers!
Nancy Benson
Sales Representative
Direct: 613.747.4747
Office: 613.788.2556
E-mail: nancy@nancybenson.com
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