If you’re selling your home in Scottsdale, your real estate agent has probably already talked to you about staging – and even if you choose not to hire a professional home stager, there are plenty of things you can do to make your home sell itself.
Buyers will walk into your home and go straight to the kitchen – it’s a universal gathering space. Here’s what you need to do to stage your kitchen:
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Hire a professional cleaner
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Repaint, if necessary
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Make sure your windows are spotless
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Clear off your counters
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Clean out and organize your cupboards
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Clean out and organize your drawers
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Add finishing touches
Staging Your Kitchen: The Basics
Buyers will walk into your home and go straight to the kitchen – it’s a universal gathering space. When they’re talking about what they’ve seen elsewhere in your home, they tend to chat in the kitchen, too. This incredibly important space needs to:
o Be fresh and spotlessly clean
o Look and feel spacious and bright
o Be welcoming and appear easy to maintain
Here’s how to pull it all off.
7 Tips to Stage Your Kitchen to Sell Your Home in Scottsdale
#1. Hire a professional cleaner.
You could clean your kitchen yourself, but when it comes to staging, it’s usually best to bring in the big guns. Hire a professional cleaning company to tackle your whole house – you’ll be glad you did. Your only responsibility after that is to maintain it.
#2. Repaint, if necessary.
Talk to your Scottsdale real estate agent about repainting your kitchen (and other rooms, while you’re at it). If your agent suggests that it’s time for a fresh coat, he or she can also refer you to a local pro.
#3. Make sure your windows are spotless.
Natural light sells homes. Your kitchen windows need to let in as much as possible, which means cleaning them inside and out, as well as cleaning the screens to make sure there’s no dust, dirt or debris caught in them.
#4. Clear off your counters
Buyers don’t want to see your stack of bills, magazines or other mail on the counter, nor do they want to see your house keys, kids’ toys or anything that reminds them of their own cluttered counter tops. Clear off everything on the counter that doesn’t naturally fit there – and even then, you want the counter space to appear as large as possible. That means minimize the number of appliances you keep on the counter.
#5. Clean out and organize your cupboards and pantry.
Take out everything you haven’t used in 6 months and pack it away, donate it or sell it. If you have anything broken in your cupboards, put it in the trash. Once everything is cleared out, you need to organize like items together. Cans with cans, bottles with bottles… you get the picture.
Buyers will look inside your cupboards and pantry. They need to see that there’s ample space for all their stuff, but they can only do that when they see that there’s enough room for yours.
#6. Clean out and organize your drawers.
The same principle that applies to your cupboards and pantry applies to your drawer. If you have a junk drawer – and we know you do, because we do, too – empty it completely. Find a home for everything in there, and if you can’t, toss it.
#7. Add finishing touches.
Now that your counters are completely clear, you have room to do first-glance staging – you can set the tone for your buyers. Remember that if you have an eat-in kitchen, a smaller table will make it appear larger. (It’s also a nice touch to set the table.)
You can also:
o Bring in a live plant or two, and make sure you keep it alive and thriving. If it starts to die, you’re better off with nothing.
o Use a cookbook stand to hold an open cookbook filled with colorful (and mouth-watering) photos.
o Think about adding a fruit basket to your counter, if it won’t make it appear smaller, next to a bottle of gourmet olive oil.
