Staging your home for prospective buyers can be daunting. But there are ways to simplify and ease the hassle and frustration that comes with staging your home.

If you’re new here, staging your home involves decluttering and depersonalizing your home along with using furniture arrangement to help buyers see your home in the best possible light.

By taking the time and effort to stage your home you will accomplish the following:

• Decrease the time your home is on the market
• Increase your selling price
• Create a quality first impression

So, what’s the best way to stage your home? There really are many ways to go about staging your home when selling. One way is to hire a professional stager which will cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to over a thousand. But, you should be able to do a very good job with just a little thought and planning.

I’ve previously written about staging many times here. But today I want to take a different perspective on the reasons behind staging your home as well as the process of staging your home.

Leo Babauta is the creator of a blog entitled Zen Habits. He writes about creating simplicity in your life and many of his posts you can use when selling your home. Less is more, especially when it comes to selling your home.

He recently wrote a post detailing the best way to go about creating a minimalist home and the benefits of doing so. Leo listed three main benefits:

1. Less stressful
2. More appealing
3. Easier to clean

All of which, as a home seller, you’re trying to accomplish.

By decluttering, your home will remain on the market less and increase your selling price compared to similar homes that are not decorated and arranged to appeal to the most possible buyers.

Leo has many other posts worth reading as well, including:

• Top 10 Resources and Inspirations for Decluttering Your Home
• Edit Your Life: Your Rooms
• Keeping a Stress Free, Clean House
• Develop Clean House Habits One at a Time

As an aside, if you’ve liked what you’ve read click here to view details about Leo’s new eBook entitled “Zen to Done.” I purchased the eBook for Christmas and absolutely loved reading it.

Welcome to the most wonderful time of the year! Unfortunately it may also be the most stressful time of the year as well. Preparing for the holidays as well as trying to sell your home can many times become to stressful.

Here is a list of ways to help keep your home ready to sell, and you just a little saner–

1. Keep your decorations to a minimum. Having to much ’stuff’ for buyers to see can become distracting. This is the year to pack most of your decorations away in preparation for your new home next year.
2. Purchase doormats for inside and outside your home’s entrance. This provides an area for buyers to stamp off any salt, or dirt that may be on there shoes. Colorful doormats will help bring color into the room.
3. Keep your driveway and sidewalk shoveled. Safety is your number one concern during the winter months.
4. If you’re providing flyer’s on your yard sign, keep a path shoveled so buyers can easily grab one when they pass by.
5. Bake cookies during the showing. The smell will help buyers feel like ‘home.’
6. Paint. Because most people are spending less time outside than now is a great time to paint your rooms. Paint instantly makes your home feel newer, so this is time well spent.
7. Turn all lights on. A bright home appears larger and looks cleaner than a home that is darker. Because it gets dark sooner, having your lights on becomes really important.
8. Don’t keep presents or other valuables out during a showing. Don’t tempt someone with having your valuables around. Out of site, out of mind.
9. Keep other personal items out of the way as well. Pictures, religious items etc. should be packed away awaiting your new home.
10. Keep a positive attitude and remain patient. Winter is not the easiest time of year to sell, but continue to remain patient. Remember, a Realtor is not having anymore success than you are.

There you have it, 10 ways to help you sell during the holiday months. By following these 10 simple steps you’ll increase your odds of making a sale during this difficult time of year.

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