We are seeing a seller’s market right now throughout much of the country with homes going off the market sight unseen or after aggressive bidding wars. However, selling your home may not always be that easy. If your home is still sitting on the market when your neighbors’ homes are selling in days, your staging and décor may be holding you back from your sale.
The majority of home buyers are millennials (people born between 1982-1996), and these buyers want homes that are modern, updated, and ready for them to move into. Because these buyers are working more or on tighter budgets, they don’t want to spend a large amount of time and money to make their home current. Bring your home into the present by ditching these outdated trends and sell your house faster!
Faux Greenery and Fake Props
From faded ivy draped across the tops of cabinets to dusty palms sitting in the corners of dining rooms, fake greenery is a thing of the past! Buyers want authentic, real staging elements when they walk through a home and fake greenery, bowls of plastic fruit, and thread-bare silk flowers just look tired and bedraggled.
Instead: Bring in fresh-cut flowers, living greenery, and stage with bowls of fresh produce. If you worry about how long these elements will last, consider using succulents. Buyers will love the natural, fresh look in your home.
Wallpaper and Wallpaper Border
Wallpaper is a highly personalized design choice, and while wallpaper is making a comeback in design, it’s very polarizing. Wallpaper border is especially dated, and buyers will not see the cheerful nautical theme or sweet teddy bears, they’ll see themselves spending hours scraping that wallpaper and eliminating all trace of boats or bears. If they’re not willing to put in the work, they’ll pass on your house.
Instead: Remove the wallpaper yourself, and replace it with a fresh, neutral paint color that opens up the room and buyers will fall in love with.
Formal Living Areas
While the older generations had the formal living rooms that were kept pristine for entertaining company (and that the kids were absolutely NOT allowed to go in!), today’s buyer is more informal and wants the entire home to be relaxed, cozy, and functional. Walking into an ultra-formal living room with uncomfortable furniture and impractical design will turn away buyers who envision fun, laid-back get-togethers.
Instead: Turn the living room into a room you want to live in, even if there is already a separate family room. Remove Victorian, Tuscan, or antique settees and spindly chairs and replace them with functional furnishings with clean lines. Take down the heavy window treatments and ruffled valances and replace them with sheer panels to bring the light in.
Consider Your Color Palette
When you walk through your rooms, what colors pop out at you? From the dusty blues and pinks of a country theme to the crimsons, yellows, and gold of a Tuscan look, no matter how lovely you may find them, these are hurting your ability to sell your home. Very few buyers want to move into their parent’s home, and these dated color schemes will give that feel.
Instead: Use neutral tones like browns, grays, and beige for wall colors and furnishings and use bold shades like red, green, and yellow in your decoration. You will appeal to more buyers who will appreciate the clean, crisp look of modern color schemes.
