When marketing your home for sale, among all the preparation that must be done to make your home stand out amongst the competition, you also need to consider your home's appeal. The appeal of your home may not result in a direct increase of the market value of your home. However, it can certainly help.
Items that add value to your home include the home's square footage, the granite kitchen and the covered porch. They may not add as much value as their original cost, but they certainly do add some value.
Items that add to the appeal of your home include the freshly-painted front door, the neatly trimmed plants and hedges along the front walkway, the sparkling-shiny kitchen sink and counters, the welcoming floral arrangement in your entry foyer. You get the idea.
We cannot always put a dollar amount on these appeal items. But they help create the desired ambiance of your home to entice buyers to say, "Hey, I can see myself living here!" And, that is the goal of marketing your home for sale.
Why worry about your home's appeal? Because buyers' emotions play a large part in deciding which home to buy. They want to fall in love with the "feel" of the home, in addition to its location, floor plan and price. They want to feel comfortable in the house. They want to see that the home has been well cared-for and loved. They do not want to worry about how long it will take them to clean that grime off of the shower stall, or the effort and money needed to re-landscape the entire grounds.
Can your home's appeal add to its value. Certainly. The more appeal your home possesses, the faster it will attract a buyer and the more buyers it may attract. More buyers can equal multiple offers and a higher final sales price. Finding the right buyer faster means closing on the sale of your home sooner; this results in lower holding costs to you, as you discontinue paying off that mortgage, those taxes, the insurance and other costs much sooner. And the ability to move on and have your home sell quickly without months and months of showings? Priceless.
Don't forget to take a look around your home to determine ways you can add to its appeal. Ask your friends and family to take a discriminating look, too. And, of course, make sure your REALTOR does the same and provides you with a check-list of things to do.
Hey Don I just found this post... its too good NOT to be absorbed by stagers.
If you join the Stage it forward Group.. I will mark it with a Group Gold Star...
Hopefully that will get you a more comments too.
Me
I even bookmaked this... thats how good I thought it was.
Me
Maybe we have a closet stager here!
Great post Don!
Craig - Thanks for the kind words.
Jessica - "Closet Stager" I need to find a way to market that one!
Don-
Great points and great dialogue for the Realtor who argues that removing wallpaper will not add value. I am going to ad this blog to my arsenal of answers.
Hi Don,
Great information here. I am not in the market but it is always nice to keep this in mind. We often overlook how even the smallest details can give greater appeal to your house.
Kimberly - So what is your solution for wallpaper? I've removed it with disastrous results (but, admittedly, I didn't prepare the walls first, and the paper was very, very old so the wall came off with the paper...). I've painted over it with fairly good results.
Blanca - Thanks for the comment. A lot of the small details can all add up to one heck of a presentation of your home.
Don-
Your best option is always removal. I recommend scoring it with a tool called a paper tiger (it punctures the wallpaper, but not the wall and allows liguids to seep behind the decorative layer and soften the glue) then spraying with a combination of warm water and fabric softener. Let it sit for a few minutes, then scrape gently with a drywall knife. After all the paper is removed, then you need to clean the walls with a cloth and the water/fabric softener solution again to remove the glue haze. There is also a product called DIF that works on tougher applications.
I usually tell my clients to start in an inconspicuous place and remove just a small amount. If the wall starts to crumble, you only have this small area to repair. Then your only option is to paint over it. Always prime first, after making sure all seams are secure. You may sometimes need to use a drywall compound to fill in the seem gaps, if they are large. I always give them a handyman refferal, if they are hesitant to do it themselves.
Of course, if you are working with a competent stager and they have a good design eye, they may be able to make the wallpaper work in certain cases. It all depends on what you are working with.
Hope that helps.
Don- Mine does not have any either, anymore - that is why I am so experienced at removing it!
Don, great points- Appeal adds Value!
Kimberly, I found this post through the link from yours. Thanks for the great pointers for dealing with wallpaper.