Home Selling Guide

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Simple SENSES can sell your home

Chances are, if you’re selling your home you’ll have many buyers viewing your home. You’ll have open houses and buyer meetings. This may take place over several days, or several weeks. If your home is in top condition, many potential buyers will want to inspect your home. The more buyers, the more likely you’ll sell your home, faster.

While you want to expose your home to as many buyers as possible, don’t forget to use some common SENSE for these showings. Usually, when a buyer is looking for a home, he’ll meet with a realtor and spend several days looking at houses, from dawn ‘til dusk. The realtor provides feature sheet for each property. A buyer will spend anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more at each home, eliminating those homes that don’t fit his needs. With so many homes to view, the details of a specific home can become blurred. That’s why it’s common for a home buyer to rely upon impressions, feelings and comfort level when considering a home.

When it comes to selling your home, there is much you can do to increase the comfort level, and impression level of potential purchasers. In fact, with some attention to the four SENSES, you’ll make your home much more appealing. Most important, you’ll create and impression, buyers can’t resist.

Sense of smell
Remember mom’s home made apple pie or bread? Nothing says warmth, comfort, and security like the combination of vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon and wheat, baking in the oven. You don’t have to bake each time a prospective buyer arrives. There are many easy ways to introduce pleasant smells into your home.

Place a piece of bread (sprinkled with cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, or cloves) into the oven on a low temperature for a few minutes.
Purchase frozen bread dough. Follow baking directions. It’s simple and easy.
Have a bakery prepare two dozen unbaked cinnamon buns. Freeze. It only takes a few minutes to defrost. When you’re expecting a buyer, pop two or three into the oven, at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes.
Place a few drops of vanilla on light bulbs. Turn on all the lights prior to a showing.
Purchase an inexpensive potpourri cooking pot. You can add fragrance with oil, beads, spices, or perfume. Leave it simmer and refill every two or three days.
Add a few drops of vanilla, nutmeg or cinnamon to a pot of water and let simmer for a few minutes.

A word of caution. Too much fragrance can be unpleasant and distracting. People may wonder what you are trying to hide with an overpowering effect. Buyers will also remember the lingering garlic, onions and curry long after they’ve forgotten the color of the bedroom walls.

Sense of Sight
Visual enhancements can add color, warmth, texture and atmosphere to your home. Colorful pillows, vases with flowers, plants, and attractive afghans provide the feeling of a bright and cheerful home.
A word of caution. Too many decorating items create a cluttered, crowded feeling. Neutral decorating tends to work best. Anything unusual usually distracts the buyer.

Sense of Hearing
Gentle background music can provide a relaxing atmosphere for the viewing. Find some “elevator music,” that is non-offensive and easy on the ears.

Sense of Touch
Be sure that all high-traffic surfaces are clean and clutter free. It’s not uncommon for a potential home buyer to run their hands over a bathroom sink, or a kitchen counter. When surfaces are clean and freshly disinfected, you create a cared for feeling.

When you pay attention to smell, sight, hearing and touch, you’ll present a more attractive atmosphere for a potential buyer. When you give your home these inexpensive touches, you can help pay big dividends with buyers.