It’s true you want prospective buyers to come into your home and feel like they could live there — even move in tomorrow! But that doesn’t mean that your house needs to look generic or boring. What will make your home the most appealing? It’s a look we call the “new neutral.” Check out our tips to help you prepare your home for showings – and create a “neutral” environment that is sure to please.
1. Create a Polished, But Not Fussy, Look
Think of your home as a boutique hotel: the rooms are comfortable with high-quality, carefully chosen accoutrements. Far from being stark white boxes, they are a very inviting place to “move into” right now — the very same feeling you want prospective buyers to feel in your home. The lesson is that neutral does not mean “not lived in.”
Your home will be more welcoming if looks “finished” in an inoffensive way. Buyers don’t want windows to be obscured with heavy dated drapes, but they also don’t want them to be bare. Install light gauzy window coverings. Edit your furnishings so that rooms look bigger, but keep enough of the basics so that there’s a good conversational grouping in the living room, good reading lamps next to the beds in the bedrooms, high-quality towels in the bathroom.