Hi everyone! This is Jennie, Marketing Director for The Weaver Team. I’m always posting tips on home staging, getting ready to move, etc. but I thought speaking from my own experience might really hit home for you all. My husband and I recently decided to put our condo on the market to move on up to our first house. SO exciting, but also SO stressful!

P: Shutterstock

Just looking at all of the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years was giving me heart palpitations. And I am a total neat freak – so it probably wasn’t even that bad. I had so many thoughts going through my head, there were so many things I wanted to clean or fix up before putting our condo on the market. There was just so much to do that I didn’t even want to start.

Once we started looking at houses, we decided it was time to buck up and get our condo on the market – sellers aren’t very enamored with offers contingent upon selling your current property. We were getting ready to head out on vacation for 10 days and I thought it would be the perfect time to list, that way the condo could be shown any time and we wouldn’t have to get out, figure out what to do with the dog, or clean up after ourselves.

So now we had a deadline to get our place ready, which was just the kick in the pants we needed. After all of the homes I’ve photographed and all of the staging tips I’ve poured over the past couple years, I knew the first step would be to declutter and depersonalize. We rented a small 5 x 10 storage unit for our ‘overflow’, I highly recommend a storage unit if you don’t have a basement or garage where you can store things.

We removed all photographs of ourselves, family, and dog – including from the walls, shelves, and refrigerator. We had a few ‘extra’ pieces of furniture including a console table, wine tower, and 2 dining room chairs that we removed to make the space look as large as possible, but without making it look sparse. We have storage under the stairs, so to show how large the space is, we packed it all up and put it in storage. The same for our closets, buyers are looking for storage space so if your closets are filled to the brim it gives a sense of very little storage space. We packed up seasonal clothes and shoes and off to storage they went.

Next we washed ALL of our walls and doors, just a bucket of water and a cloth, wiping them all down top to bottom. You will not believe the difference it made! And don’t forget the kitchen cabinets which tend to get extra grimy. We also wiped the ceiling fan blades, man those get dirty.

Once everything was hauled off to storage and everything had been wiped down, I went back through and redecorated. Yes you should declutter and depersonalize, but you don’t want your home to feel cold and unwelcoming. We have a cluster of shelves above the couch where I added candles and small picture frames will cool wallpaper. I put a runner on our dining room table with some candles and added a few small colored vases to a shelf above the TV.

Finally, as an added touch, we created a flyer that called out the features of our condo and also some additional perks like being within walking distance of the Village, local events, and being near the bus line. You don’t know if the agent showing your home is familiar with the area, so why not let them know why you love living there?

Let me tell you – staging works! Our condo, listed with The Weaver Team of course :), sold in 1 1/2 weeks! If you are going to list and have a vacation coming up, definitely list before you go, it will save you a ton of hassle with showings. And hopefully, like me, your home will sell while you’re away!

Stay tuned for my next post on buying a home.