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Stage Your Home to Sell

So what does a financial planner know about real estate? Nothing, except that I wanted to sell my house for top dollar. I’m a financial planner, not a real estate agent. That being said I wanted top dollar for my home, so I had a vested interest. Here is what we did, and it worked.

We sold our house recently and between the real estate agent and my wife, we actually sold the house on the very first viewing the day after it was listed, for 100% of the asking price in Bedford NS. Now I’m not a real estate agent, but I understand sales  and I know things just don’t sell that fast, so how did we do it?

The first thing we did was to listen to our real estate agent about the pricing. Of course we thought the house was worth more than what the market analysis showed- everyone does. However, we wanted to be fair to ourselves, the agent and a potential buyer.  We built the house 10 years ago and had designed it for our family with all the things we wanted in a home.

We wanted to down size, or as I call it, right sizing. The kids have grown and are on their own now. We just didn’t need the big house any longer; so we didn’t de-clutter, we purged, cleaned, touched up paint, removed screens, thinned out furniture, removed personal items  and “Value Villaged” a bunch more. 

As we looked around, we took out everything that we knew was going to be eventually tossed anyway. Many things I would pick up and say “if I had died last night, would my wife throw this out?”. If the answer was yes, it got tossed. I don’t know why we had so many doubles of so many things.

We even had a yard “give away”, not a yard sale. We put a few tables on the lawn and filled them with hostess gifts we had received over the years, old kid’s games, teddy bears, pressure cookers, and pans. Everything went to passer buyers and everyone was happy. If we had tried to sell it, we would have spent the entire day and would have made very little.

We also sold many things on Kijiji. A simple photo, a little well-crafted write up, and people called interested in our tables, chairs, and the pool table all for decent prices. If we weren’t going to take things with us, and if the kids didn’t want them, it was sold. We raised enough to pay for all new leather furniture for the new place!

We had been advised to remove all the little things around the house. The little personal things that other people would only see as junk. Magazines, candy dishes, cell phones, charging wires and the dried flowers were all removed. Even the pantry was allowed to become emptier for the weeks before the move. We wanted every cupboard to look spacious, and not full.

We even had a display of unopened imported liquor from around the world. We were told it might look great to us, but it could be offensive to the buyer so we drank one, and stored the rest. Don’t worry; they will be reopened in the new place.

The closets, oh yes, the closets. They were all full, so we thinned them out, stored all the winter clothes, and then sorted the remaining clothes according to color, from light to dark starting on the left. The walk in closets looked like a clothing store.

 The garage was cleaned, the tools boxed up, and the Christmas decorations were stored too. We even cleaned under the sink and stuck the end of the vacuum into light fixtures to dust them out.


We took down all the screens on the windows as this allowed additional light to come in. It’s amazing how every bit of light helps. In the dining room we removed one leaf of the table and stored a few of the dining chairs. The table fits 12, but “looks” better smaller. Buyers want your house, not your furniture, so you need to give them room to place furniture in their mind.

 The deck received a fresh coat of stain to bring up the color. The store room was pretty much emptied so its large size could be viewed.  The concrete floor was mopped with Mr. Clean too. The driveway was pressure washed. I even cleaned the garage door windows, oiled the garage door chain and door hinges. The hot tub was drained and water replaced. The oven was cleaned, the fridge was washed out, and the magnets were removed from the fridge door. We even replaced many light bulbs around the house. 

In the end, we turned our home into a show room and the only cost was for a little touch up with some paint, some stain and a few wall hangings from Winners. The rest was elbow grease and some forward thinking.

We thought of the dream houses and how pristine they all look, and they do. This is because no one has lived in them and everything is staged. So, this is what we did to our place too.

The bottom line is that there is a difference between living in a home and selling a home. In the end, we did everything that ultimately made our move that much lighter. We don’t really know why we kept that much stuff around for years anyway!

For Mortgage Insurance call: 
Corry Collins 
corry@maritimewealth.com 
902-444-7000 

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