Preparing your decor and furniture to impress during a home tour has a lot to do with how successful you will be at securing a buyer for your home. The fact is when someone is finally in a home, in person, and checking it out, they not only are interested but they are looking for reasons to be convinced that the home they are in is their future home. Making sure your decor and furniture and house is general is dressed to impress is part of setting everything up so that a potential buyer receives the validation they not only need but are looking for when they attend a home tour. Below are tips for preparing your decor and furniture to impress during a home tour.
Live up to your pictures
If you are at the point of thinking about the details of your home decor and furniture for your home tour, hopefully, you also were taking into consideration the importance of great, professional photos for your listing.
If you have stellar pictures, you need to live up to them if not surpass them for the actual tour.
The photos of your property will entice buyers to take the next step into the actual home tour and the home tour will serve to seal the deal and give a potential buyer the validation they are looking for when they schedule the tour. Think of it this way: they wouldn’t schedule a tour if what they have seen up to that point disinterested them.
Where and how you list your home has a lot to do with living up to your photos. If you use a flat-fee MLS service, you may not have access to superior photos, but there are some like beycome that offer affordable professional photo shoots of your home for sale that is included in your MLS listing package.
Keep it clean
Keep upholstery clean and looking the least “lived-in” as possible. The less worn out any furniture looks in your home during a home tour the better. You want a potential buyer to associate your property with something fresh, a new beginning, and something they can make theirs.
If furniture looks incredibly worn in, has a distinct smell to it, or is shedding, cracking, or tearing in any way, consider removing it from the premises for the home tour.
Keeping pieces of art and frills, upholstery, shades, etc. to a bare minimum is also ideal. Frills are always a bad idea when it comes to decorating for a home tour, and the same goes for any amount of clutter.
If it’s even a small piece like a vase, but it’s not really serving a function, opt instead always for a clean and clear tabletop than something on top of it.
Consider design
When you are working with simple pieces (as you should be for open house decor) you are working not only with a limited amount of items for the decor and furniture but also a limited amount of design availabilities, which, when it comes to design, is actually a good thing.
Your main concern with large pieces that are functional but beautiful in design comes down to shapes. If your coffee table is round, consider a couch with harder edges. A good design is all about contrasting shapes. These contrasting edges and shapes suddenly create an interesting and exciting design with only two furniture items. This keeps everything clean but still aesthetically pleasing.
Keeping a theme of some sort, or similarity, throughout is important, but adding some contrast as well is what will make your home really come to life for an interested buyer on a home tour.
Choose art carefully
Choosing the art for your home tour is something that requires a bit of thought and discretion. If there’s a piece of art that truly adds to the overall design of your decor and home, go ahead and leave it, but perhaps only leave one piece either in a room or on a wall.
More than art to create an atmosphere and scene will be items available to a buyers’ senses (more than just visual). Consider instead of leaving a painting or photos on the wall (in fact, take down any and all photos of you, your family, your mementos!) adding a comfortable, soft blanket thrown over a chair or the couch for the buyer to touch while they check out the room.
Preparing the decor and furniture to impress for your home definitely requires a little thought and planning, but it’s well worth it! Once a potential buyer enters your home, give them every reason to have all the interest they do have in your property to be only validated. With these tips, you’ll be able to show a buyer that you understand their needs and can present your property in a way that best suits, serves, and impresses them.