Jody Miller: Welcome to our kitchen. Our kitchen’s been staged, not over the top. There’s not like a whole ton of stuff here, but maybe what you notice is there isn’t a lot, which actually makes it better. One of the big things you just want to declutter and get away from having multiple coffee machines on the counter. Having wash cloth that are hung over the sink here, just because someone just did the dishes, they leave it here. So, you just want to show the kitchen off. It’s one of the main rooms like kitchens and bathrooms. People really they’re sold on kitchens. They see a nice and sweet washroom. They’re sold on that too. So, you really want to take the time to make your kitchen look really, really good. We’re shooting this in the kitchen, so we’re not going to go in every room. But think about that in other rooms too, you just don’t want to have a lot of clutter.

And when you do have a space here, kind of a floating space like this, have the chair here, have some magazines, show off what it is and what it can be. Don’t have a bunch of things just piled here. You want someone to get excited about it? And like we said earlier, whatever they see in the photos, they want to come to the house and they wanted to be a hundred percent of what they saw in the photos. So, don’t change it. Don’t have it looking like, oh, we just did a whole bunch of dishes. We got our dishes drying, whatever they saw in the photos. Keep it that way. So number one, declutter, maybe with an orange, why not have some props, some of this stuff isn’t going to  get used. We’ve got some buns here. It looks like they’re big, fresh, but not really, but people aren’t going to know the difference. We just want them to like the place they want, see the place and then get a good vibe when they come in here. So, number one, declutter, get rid of all that stuff. 

Number two, when you’re selling your house, make sure you don’t have two big pieces of furniture here, you know? And here we don’t have a kitchen table right here, but you go into a house. You’d be surprised how many people have a little table right there. So, make it all flow, make it work. Number three, if you have time paint the house if you can, it’s not going to cost you all that much. Some people can do it themselves but you’d be surprised how many colors, there are in a house. When you look at your house, you might have a feature wall that’s Merlo, which was big in the early 2000s. But now that purpleish reddish color is just over the top and really dark. So, find out what some good neutral colors are that people like it’s going to work with their furniture. And it’s going to work with your furniture too. So, take the time, paint the house.

It’s going to go a long ways. One thing that I always tell people too, if they’re leaving the house after maybe having a shower in the morning, change the towels. Like you don’t want to have, oh, there’s your wet towel. Drying on a towel bar beside the shower they go in there. That’s kind of gross. Why not have some nice plush towels? If you’re going to have a shower. Yeah, still live in your house. But take that towel, tuck it somewhere else. Have some nice show towels out on the counter, on the towel bar. Have a nice soap that isn’t being used, not a bar of soap that you’re washing your hands with and you leave it beside the sink and it’s kind of gross. So, think of what you would want to see in a house and just like the shows you see on TV, go into these nice homes. That’s what you want your house to be is one of those nice homes too.

In a house there’s a lot of times like when I go out to houses, people have lived there for a lot of years. They’ve got pictures of their family everywhere. They’ve got personal things. They’ve got little rhymes and jokes on the wall. They’ve got clutter. They don’t even know that they have but when you have too much stuff there and it’s really just you, a buyer can’t go in there and imagine themselves in that house. It’s just sort of overwhelming. So, you want to de personalize your house. You don’t need to get rid of every photo. I mean, have a couple pictures, have your grandkids up there.

If you want to have a wedding picture, that’s okay. But don’t have 43 pictures on the wall. Just have a couple placed on the wall or maybe sometimes better don’t have any at all and then the person’s going to imagine their pictures there. But I mean a wedding picture’s good would imagine their wedding picture there. A family pictures are good because it’s a happy place. And they’re going to imagine this is their happy place. So, a little is good, but don’t overdo it. When you see these picture walls with all these different pictures galore, it just makes people feel like where do we fit into this house? So, you want them to feel like this house is going to be theirs and ideally they go, yeah, like we’re the right family for this. And we’re move into this house and it’s going to be perfect for us. Just like it kind of looks to be perfect for the people who live here already.

So, we touched on painting the house. Definitely if you have the ability to do so, it’s not going to cost you an awful lot. I’m pretty sure it’s worth your while to do so. Every house is different. So, I mean consult with me or consult with your realtor about that. But painting is a big thing and it’s an easy thing to do, goes a long, long ways. Another good thing is lighting, lighting fixtures aren’t that expensive.

The new LED lighting is going to go so well with the nice paint job, illuminate the house, make people feel like a nice bright space. Even if it’s kind of a dingy rainy day, light up the house, people are going to love that. Another thing that’s important is just have the house smelling fresh. You’ve been cooking. Your bedroom window hasn’t been opened in three months, open your windows, get the fresh air flowing through the house like Tammy from Center Stage said she suggested having, if you do have an air freshener, have an apple centered air freshener or have a vanilla scented air freshener and make sure it’s just on a low setting. No one wants to be overwhelmed with weird smells. So, make sure you don’t have some ocean breeze smell that maybe one buyer doesn’t like, and it just turns them off as soon as they walk in the house. Some people are sensitive to smells too. So, a little bit and just a couple options, but don’t think what you like everybody else likes.

A few more things and we’re not in any particular order here just giving you some ideas of things you can do when it’s time to sell your house to make it just show better and make a good impression when people come in. So, from the outside in, when they drive up, have good curb appeal, take the time if you have a couple stairs up to your door, you’ve got a door that maybe needs painting. It gets a lot of sunlight, paint the door, paint those steps. Just make a good impression. Don’t have garbage cans out front. If you have those garbage cans out front that are like city of such and such, and it’s a recycled bin and a garbage bin and a yard waste bin, it’s going to look trashy in the pictures. Trashy, that’s pretty good.

Yeah, but it’s going to look bad in the pictures. It’s also going to look not very good in person. So, tuck it around the back of the house. When they drive up, you want just to start off with a great, like, hey, look at this house. It looks perfect. The lawn was just cut. When they walk in, have it clean. Clean the windows, clean the floors, clean the outside of the windows, clean the inside of the windows. Like just make sure it’s sparkling because people are going to see in the comments like Mr. and Mrs. Clean live here.

And those are the kind of houses that like, they’re a lot easier to sell. People are excited and they might generate a multiple offer. But if it says that and then they get there and there’s muddy footprints on the floor and the baseboards are covered in dust. No one’s going to be impressed. They’re going to notice it. So, take the time, like clean that house, polish it, make it look, picture perfect.

Lastly, just make sure everything is how you’d want it to be. So, I touched on this a little bit, but if you’re going to  have a shower before you head out, take that towel and put it somewhere else, make it look like no one’s been there all day. You’re going to have the time to like bake some cookies. Maybe you won’t, maybe you will. But if you could, that’d be amazing. Bake some chocolate chip cookies have them on the stove, have the house smelling really good.

The more you do the better. If you’ve got a kid’s room and the windows haven’t been opened recently, open the windows, get some fresh air in there. So, they walk in the fresh air from outside is just continuous on the inside. So, think about how you want your house to look.

If you were buying one, what would turn you off? What do you look for? And just think about the other people that are coming to look and that little bit of effort you make is going to go a long, long ways. So, just make sure everything I’m saying, take it into consideration. And if this is too much in one video, talk to me, I’m happy to tell you, hey, this is what you need to do on your house. And maybe you’ve already done like 80% of it, but there’s a couple things you could do just to make it perfect.

So, staging your house, being ready for showings. Those are all very, very important. Lastly, one thing that I suggest, make sure realtor, does this have a sign at the front door? So, when they walk in, please remove your shoes. Like, you’d think people would know better, but it’s amazing how many people they wear their shoes in the house. That’s what they do. They do it at home. So, they’re going to do it here. Somebody walks in with like muddy shoes or just shoes in general, walking through your house. Like you’re not going to be too impressed. So, tell your realtor, you want to sign, remove your shoes.

And another thing that’s helpful is ask them to leave a business card inside. So, you know when you come home that that showing’s happened, it shows so and so show the host today. They left their card behind. Now you’re good to go home, enjoy your day because you know the showing’s happened already. Hope this is helpful. When the time’s right, if you want to give me a phone call and we can talk further about selling your house, have a great day.