When you’re ready to list your Hawaii home for sale, any good Real Estate Agent will give you good tips on preparing your home to photograph and to show. The first rule to remember is don’t take offense to any of those suggestions!
The way we live in our homes should make us happy and comfortable, but the way we present a home for sale should make everyone else happy and comfortable.
For example, I’m pretty cozy in my jammies and bunny slippers, but imagine if company came over for dinner and I hosted the party looking like that. My guests would think it was odd and would probably leave early so I could go back to bed.
Guidelines for Staging a Hawaii Home
When you show your home, you want the potential buyers to feel as welcome as possible, and to stay for as long as possible to develop an emotional connection to the home. So, dress your home appropriately for the occasion. Here are a few ground rules for preparing to show your Hawaii home (which should result in you netting the most money):
1. Show It Off
Neatness counts. Everywhere. From the landscaping, to the bookshelves, to the kitchen counters, to the bathroom closets. Streamline everything you own and pack away the things you don’t need to live with on a daily basis for the duration of the sale. Now is a great time to edit your wardrobe, dump broken items, and donate toys the kids have outgrown.
Get the items out of the way that obscure your home’s features. If this seems like an overwhelming task, there are professional organizers who can help, and your initial investment will pay off in time (and sanity) saved!
2. Cleanliness Counts
To paraphrase the musical Annie, “We’re gonna clean this place ’til it shines like the top of the Chrysler Building.” The cleanliness of your home sends a subconscious message to buyers about how well you take care of the structural and systemic parts that aren’t as obvious.
3. Keep the Buyer(s) Focused
Remove your collections. You may love teddy bears, or Polish pottery, or silver spoons, or model airplanes, but when a buyer walks in the door, you want his or her mind on the house, not on your toys. This is the same reasoning behind removing most personal photos. You want them to fall in love with your home, not your family.
4. Demonstrate a Purpose
The placement of furnishings and accessories in a room should show the room’s primary purpose. It’s not a kitchen with a desk space and a place for coats. It’s a kitchen – and it’s the best darned kitchen around.
Edit the items in the room to show it doing what it does best. If you have an odd space without a purpose, invent one and stage it to match. Maybe it’s a reading nook or a music corner, or a landing station near an entry door.
5. Take Off Any Blinders
We become immune to the things we see every day. Invite your most blunt friend or your agent to look through your home and tell you what stands out, both positive and negative.
Maybe you have some sentimental attachment to the kitchen wallpaper. Please just take it down. Wallpaper is nearly never a benefit to a buyer. Maybe you’re hiding a great view with heavy curtains because you value privacy for living. Remember, we’re not focusing on ‘living,’ we’re focusing on selling.
6. It’s Not a Home, It’s a Showroom Floor
If you wouldn’t find it out on display at C.S.Wo, or Pacific Home, put it away for showings. In this fantasy world of home staging, trash bins, dog dishes, Barbie dolls, toothbrushes, and toilet plungers do not exist. That’s what closets (with organizing bins) are for.
7. Remember the Tiny Details
And, last, but not least, yes, you must make your bed. Bed skirt, shams, comforter, all those tiny pillows that live under the bed with the dust bunnies, all must be fluffed up and placed neatly on the bed before every showing. Otherwise, you may as well show up to dinner in jammies and bunny slippers.
Hawaii Home Staging ‘Before & After’ Photos
Master Bedroom before Home Staging
Master Bedroom after Home Staging
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