When selling your home, “staging, staging, staging” (like “location, location, location”), is a must to get from “For Sale” to “Just Sold” faster and for a higher price.

Remember, first impressions are everything, and most buyers decide in the first 60 seconds whether they love, like or hate a house, which translates into “I want to buy this home (or not).”

So, while you can’t move your house to a choice lagoon view or wooded location, you can have your home “show-ready” to welcome buyers in a most appealing way.

Here are some simple steps that you can take to make your prospective buyer’s first impressions as good as they can be:

  • Keep all of your bathroom personal items in a holder in one of your cabinets, so your bathroom is always clutter free.
  • Put out your fluffiest towels for show and don’t use them, so that they stay neat and clean.
  • Make all the beds, fluff the pillows, and put on your bedspreads every morning.
  • Pack as much clothing as possible and keep what you use neat and organized.
  • Put all clothing in the right places right after you’re finished using them.
  • Invest in felt hangers to make all your closets more attractive and keep the closet floor clear of everything.
  • Before showings, open the blinds and turn on the lights, and put the ceiling fans on low – light and bright homes are more inviting.
  • Scents help make a great impression. The smell of a clean house is the best. Light, natural scents are also inviting. (No strong scents!)
  • Vacuum the carpet and lightly swish the wood floors every day.
  • Keep the temperature comfortable: AC when it’s hot outside and maybe fireplace time on cold days.

Additionally, when you have a showing, don’t be there. It makes buyers uncomfortable. They want to look at your house on their own and share their comments with each other without you being there.

When my wife and I sold our house in the Twin Cities, we had the house looking so good that now and then we wondered why we were selling it – until we remembered that we were moving to the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Larry Stoller is a real estate consultant and advertising executive who loves living in Bluffton, hanging out on the Island, and helping real estate agents and sellers get homes sold.