Helpful Hints for Getting a Home Sold Quickly

Porcelain ducks, a fridge blanketed with magnets and walls covered with family photos are the perfect things that make a house feel like a home. They are also the first things that need to go when it's time to turn the home back into a house.

That's the main point Colleen Rosica made during a live home staging demonstration at  recently. As the personal moving consultant, it's Rosica's job to get seniors on the retirement community's wait list prepared for transitioning from their family home to an Ann's Choice apartment.

"We all have stuff that makes our homes feel cozy and warm," said Rosica. "But when it's time to sell the property, you want to turn it into a marketable product."

Rosica presented a typical mock living room setting, with antique furniture, family portraits and personal knick-knacks. These items have the potential of turning away prospective buyers in a rough real estate market, she said.

"You have about eight seconds to make that first impression," said Rosica. "People don't want to walk around the house and start making to-do lists. If they are not thrilled in those eight seconds, they'll do the courtesy tour and move on to the next property."

Rosica continued offering home selling tips while Debbie Hutchison and Lori Savard from Davenport Interiors and a few volunteers got to work transforming the living room. The family photos and personal items were quickly removed, wallpaper was ripped down and replaced with a mirror and generic framed photos and a colorful throw rug was switched with more neutral floor covering.

The curtains were then re-opened to reveal the kind of room that can help sell a house quickly. According to the International Association of Home Staging Professionals, 94 percent of staged homes average 29 days on the real estate market.

Rosica, a licensed realtor and accredited home staging specialist, offered some helpful hints to downsize a home and prepare it for sale:

• Keep it simple and start small
• While watching television, take a drawer and sort through it. Discard the items you no longer need.
• Sort through financial documents, letters and cards. Shred if necessary.
• Remove medications from their bottle and place in a secure container. Seal it with tape and then discard.
• Sort through pictures and only keep the important ones. Consider scanning the photos.
• Simplify clothes closet
• Involve others to help you.
• Place different-colored sticky notes on items to indicate what will be moved, given to specific people, donated, sold, shred or discarded.
• Start with rooms you use the least.
• Discard large items by taking advantage of your town's bulk trash collection service or drop-off site.
• When sorting, focus on one room at a time. Don't wander between rooms.
• Stop collecting stuff.
• If you have a well-stocked pantry, refrigerator and freezer, eat what you have and do not purchase more.