As a real estate agent, you’re likely to run into a lot of homes with a unique and quirky sense of style created by the owner. While this makes the home more livable for them, it makes it a hassle to sell the home. After all, potential buyers may be turned off by these odd style quirks.
However, if you and your clients are willing to depersonalize their home before putting it on the market, you can instantly increase its value and sell it more quickly.
What Does It Mean To Depersonalize A Home?
When a family lives in a home, they do a variety of simple things to make it their own. For example, they might hang pictures of family members on the wall, bring in their own furniture, and change the wallpaper. You depersonalize a home by removing these items and replacing them with ones that suits a wider range of tastes.
Now obviously, a family is going to take pictures and furniture when they move. However, items on the house, such as the aforementioned wallpaper or the exterior siding of the home, won’t be taken. Replacing odd colored paint or wallpaper on the home will make its style more general and easier to sell.
Other items, such as exterior name signs, silly mailboxes, painted rocks, and bird baths should be removed before taking pictures of the home or showing it to any potential buyers. This will give it a more homey style that will make it more livable.
How Does This Affect A Home’s Curb Appeal?
The curb appeal of a home is a major selling point for many home buyers. If the house looks great on the outside, they are more likely to buy it. Removing quirky items from a home’s exterior immediately improves its curb value by making it appeal to a wider range of tastes.
As a result, the curb appeal of the home will rise and the home price will soar. It’s also a good idea to do a curb appeal appraisal after you depersonalize the house to catch anything that might have missed your attention. In this way, you can increase the home’s value almost instantly.
Also take time to depersonalize the interior of the home. Though this won’t directly affect the curb appeal price, it will look better in photographs. Depersonalizing a home by removing excessive interior items makes the rooms look larger in photos and during showings.
How Should You Depersonalize A Home?
Depersonalizing a home requires a little work and a few hundred dollars. Typically, depersonalizing a home is something that you and the family can do together, but experts can also be hired to do it.
While this may increase the price a few thousand dollars, it’s still worth it for the boosted sale price. Depersonalize a home by following these steps:
- Repaint the exterior a blander color
- Mow the lawn and remove personal yard decorations, such as lawn gnomes or pink flamingos
- Replace bright or patterned wallpaper with non-patterned, more neutral paper
- Remove all personal items from the home and place them in storage or, if possible, the seller’s new home
- Put in new carpet with a neutral tone
- Clean everything from top to bottom
- Fix any quirky problems that the family as adjusted to, such as a crooked door, that would make a home less desirable to a buyer
Following these tips will turn your client’s home into a blank slate. This will help make it easier to find a buyer, one that is willing to pay a good price for a handsome home that they can personalize to their own needs. To learn more about this process and other real estate tips, please contact us today.
