Last week I talked about not being at the house when an agent is showing your home to a buyer. This week I am again going to be talking about getting yourself out of the house, but in a different way.
When a buyer is looking at your home, you want them to feel like it could be their home. To do that, you need to remove as much of yourself and your family from the house as possible. I have walked into houses before that have a beautiful entry way with a gorgeous maple wood stair case leading to the second floor and a chandelier hanging that would make a princess happy.
Problem – that is not what most people saw when they walked into the home. There were about 40 pictures of the home owner, their kids and grand-children on the wall going up the stair case. The pictures, the frames and the layout was absolutely stunning. The family was a great all-American family anyone would be proud to show off and display. But the the buyers were focusing on the pictures when they walked in and not the wonderful features of the home.
The buyer and seller were both missing out on opportunities that should have been had. The buyers were not getting a true sense of the home because they were distracted by the pictures. The buyers also could never easily picture themselves in the home because every room they walked into had family pictures of the current homeowners. If the homeowners had taken a few hours to pack all those pictures before the house was shown it would have been much easier for buyers to not only see the features of the home, but also to place their own pictures on the walls in their mind and make the home theirs.
The seller also lost out. This little work would have added value to the home and it would probably have sold for more money and sold faster.
So when you are getting ready to open your house for buyers to come through do yourself a favor, remove personal items like family pictures as it will allow the buyer to more easily place themselves in the home.
