Buying a home can be an emotional roller coaster. The excitement. The stress. It brings about lots of feelings. You start by looking at listings online then you schedule showings. You finally find that one… the home that spoke to you and your partner. Everything felt right. You wrote a strong offer and beat out several other buyers. Your agent negotiated great terms on your behalf. And finally, you close and settle into your new home.
The home felt like a blank canvas when you first saw it. Fresh neutral paint colors, no personal effects, lots of open space, etc… As you took possession of your new home and move your belongings into it, you begin to make it your own. Over time the process continues. You make some updates, some big, some small. Perhaps changing out some flooring or painting a room to a color that speaks to your personality. A kitchen or bathroom remodel. The possibilities are endless.
Whether you stay a couple years or a couple decades, the time comes when you begin thinking about selling. The process of preparing your home for sale begins. Depending on the situation, sometimes it’s years in advance and other times it’s days. There are repairs and unfinished projects that suddenly get elevated on your to-do list. You reflect back on all the changes in your own life during your tenure in your home. Maybe it was raising kids or training your pets or celebrating holidays. Too many memories and lots of personal effects to go along with those memories. You think back on how the home appeared when you first saw it online. That blank canvas that stirred the possibilities inside you. And so the ritual begins. The ritual of preparing your home for its next owner. The ritual of creating that blank canvas that the previous owners went through before you first saw it.
Depersonalizing, decluttering and cleaning or as it is commonly referred to as… STAGING. These are the keys to attracting the most buyers to your listing AND getting the strongest offers possible. Almost everyone has seen or experienced these transformations. When you experience it first hand, it’s something you won’t soon forget. As top listing agents along with our team’s professional stager, Debbie Purdy Lea, we help our clients throughout this process. Sometimes it’s recommending professionals like painters and hardwood floor specialists. Other times it’s coming in with our white towels & bedding, knickknacks and artwork to add that special touch for photos and showings.
As one seller put it to me, “It’s as if we went through this process of cleansing our home in order to prepare it for the next owner.” He relayed to me that it felt very much like a “ritual.” This seller also relayed to me that this process made it easier for him and his family to process the idea of leaving this special place that they had called home for so long. Even their young children felt vested in conveying their home to the next owners. When you hand over the keys to the next owners, you want to hand them a clean slate where they can build and develop their own memories and experiences. It can really feel like a ritual. And we will be there to help you every step of the way.
