When you make the decision to show your home, you want to show it in the best light possible. The whole reason to have potential buyers over is to have them fall in love with your place. They should be able to pretend as if they already live there.
As such, there steps you need to take prior to a house showing to ensure success in this regard. House showing is a specific art and one that can certainly help to boost appeal to the buyer if done properly.
Need help learning the ropes of proper house showing? How do you present a room, what lighting should you employ, and what should be kept out of sight? Read on and we’ll walk you through what you need to know.
1. Clear All Clutter
You’ve likely lived in your home for some amount of time. Years, or maybe even decades. It’s certainly not your fault that items and belongings have started to pile it up. It happens to all of us! Possessions accumulate.
If you want to impress people like these homebuyers, however, it’s important to find ways to hide this clutter away. When people are looking to buy a new home, they’re looking to start fresh. They want a blank slate, a new place to decorate and call their own.
The last thing they want is to walk into a home that already feels lived in. Clutter provokes a strong psychological reaction in a potential home buyer. It can send them running. Yes, they can use their imagination to picture how the home might look when empty, but why would you want to force them to do that work?
Lean into their desire for a fresh start and present your home as such.
Leave all flat surfaces, like tables and countertops, clear of paper, letters, and belongings. Leave your floors sparkling clean and pack excess goods into a closet. Empty out everything you don’t need and put it somewhere where it won’t interrupt their tour.
You’ll see how much more of a positive response you get when you set up things in this way.
2. Make Them Feel At Home
You want your potential homebuyers to feel as if this new place could be their future home. As such, it’s important to do everything in your power to increase their sense of belonging.
They shouldn’t feel like visitors, and they certainly shouldn’t feel like intruders. If you can, make them feel like they already own the place. That means a warm, pleasant greeting, and it means proper preparation.
If your guests feel as if they’re interrupting you or stepping into the middle of an existing family, it might turn them off to the house. Have your kids stop watching television, get off the couch, and help show the new buyers around.
At a certain point, feel free to hang back and give them their space. They won’t feel as if it could be their own home if you’re holding their hand through every room. It can be tempting to explain each and every feature to them, but this pressure can be suffocating.
Instead, if they float freely, they will feel a better sense of control and ownership. They will be able to talk amongst themselves freely without having to worry about your hearing. It will increase the likelihood that they will buy the house.
3. Create The Right Atmosphere
There’s a lot you can do to create a warm and welcoming feeling in your home. You might not be a professional home-setter, but there are plenty of easy tricks to employ that can help to set the mood.
For one, avoid darkness. Turn the lights on in every room of the house before your potential buyers arrive. If your showing is in the middle of the day, open all the windows and curtains and let the light come in.
This will help to make things feel more inviting. It will literally ‘open up’ the house to your visitors and allow them to explore freely. Dark rooms can feel off-putting or even ‘forbidden.’ Don’t give them the impression that anything is not ready for them.
Make things romantic and lovely, if you can. If you have a fireplace, have it running. Leave a little champagne out to introduce a celebratory mood. Play pleasant, inoffensive music, but do so quietly.
Everything you can do to help relax your visitors and have them feeling good? IT can be worth trying. Just make sure you don’t go overboard.
For example, if you’re using sprays and scents, keep it on the lighter side. Too many home sellers pump fragrance into their homes in an attempt to make a good first impression. However, this scent can be overwhelming and have the opposite impact.
Scent is a powerful tool to influence mood, but it has to be used properly.
Artificial scents can even be irritating or off-putting to those with sensitive noses. It can be much better to open a few windows and have fresh, cool airflow in. If you can’t do that, it could be worth getting a few fresh flowers. Their naturally good smell will help to do the same trick.
The Perfect House Showing
If you’re preparing for a house showing in the near future, the above tips and tricks can be invaluable. Selling a home is all about presenting it in the right light, and the above methods will help you to do just that.
Need more real estate tips and tricks? Check out our blog for more information.
