Staging is an essential and profitable part of the home selling process. Staging your home to show off its qualities can only increase your final sale price. On average, people receive a $2 increase in sales price for every $1 they invest in fixing up a home.

When staging your home for sale, there are five rules of thumb to keep in mind as you go through each room in your home.

Five golden rules:

depersonalized

The buyer must envision himself in the house, not you. That wedding photo may mean a lot to you, but the buyer is a distraction from seeing a home for their family.

Maximize

Order and maximize the space in your home. Closets packed with all your clothes make a place starved for closet space. Consider temporarily storing the overflow offsite.

disinfect

This rule of thumb is the easiest and cheapest way to organize your home: clean it up. A sink full of dirty dishes is just as unappealing to you as it would be to the buyer. Cleaning floors, walls, baseboards, ceiling fans, and windows is worth the effort.

modernize

Unless your home has exceptional period built-ins, every home could benefit from an update. If someone feels that the house is outdated, they will reflect that feeling in a lower offer. Consider some simple changes, like swapping out expensive fixtures for nickel or chrome.

neutralizes

Color can make or break a buyer’s interest in your home. You might love that striking red wall, but all the potential buyer sees is a lot of paint in their future because red clashes with their style. Painting is one of the cheapest ways to change the appearance of a house.

Bonus Tips

Cupboards

Clear closets of unnecessary clutter and organize them to maximize the amount of open storage space you’re showing potential buyers. Use boxes stacked close together to keep up and hide clutter.

Use matching hangers for clothes – hooks are cheap so spending on higher quality hangers is cheap so celebrating on higher quality hangers to replace free wire hangers from the dry cleaner will modernize your closets with an impact visual and a more luxurious feel.

Bedrooms

A quick and inexpensive way to enhance your bedroom’s appeal is to use gender-neutral colors when touching up paint jobs and re-accessorizing for as much appeal as possible. Color coordinate where possible bedspreads, walls, curtains, etc. You should have a clear theme for your colors if possible.

Bathrooms

If the walls are dirty, spray them with a standard spray bottle filled with a mixture of one part bleach and one part water, then apply a fresh coat of paint.

Clear countertops of all but the essentials to make the space look more open and expansive.

Kitchen room

Modernize your outdated cabinets; they can be touched up for less than $200 with a coat of new wood stain or even a good coat of paint with sanding. Replacing brass or wood cabinet hardware with brushed silver or stainless steel is also an effective way to update dated cabinets.