SORT | FIX | STAGE | SELL

THE JIM’S GUIDE TO SELLING YOUR HOME FOR MORE

WANT TO SELL YOUR HOME FOR MORE?PLANNING 3PREPARATION 9SORT 11FIX 14STAGE 16SELL 19SO WHAT’S NEXT? 21

Selling your home is stressful. Your home is most likely your largest lifetime asset and you’ve only got one shot to make the most of it.

Jim’s Home Staging will make sure you do the repairs, improvements and certainly the designer staging to capture the hearts and minds of buyers.

This guide will walk you step by step through the planning and preparation phases of selling.

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CONTENTS

THE JIM’S GUIDE TO SELLING YOUR HOME FOR MORE

If you’re not staging your home for sale, you’re losing money.

PLANNING

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When planning to sell your home, you’ll need to get a lot of ducks in a row. It’s kind of why moving home is up there among life’s most stressful events.

Planning will set you up to make the most of your sale, ensure that you are well informed and therefore less likely to be led or influenced by the multitude of opinions that will inevitably come your way.

KNOW YOUR ‘WHY’ Know why you are planning to sell. It may seem obvious but understanding your own motivation for selling gives you a framework for making decisions.

There are a lot of reasons people sell a home:

» Upgrade to a better location or lifestyle» Outgrown your home as the family expands» Moving closer to family, the good school, the better job opportunity» Downsizing an empty nest» Dealing with a divorce or separation» Property investing and upgrading to build wealth» A hot market you want to capitalise on» A declining market’s occurring and you want to get out now» You’ve already had an offer accepted on your next house (woops!)

Financial necessity, changes in job status, business failures, other debt burdens, divorces and death are all unfortunate but very common reasons to sell.

If you are selling by choice, you have less pressure and greater opportunity to prepare your home for sale and maximise the return.

When you are faced with selling because of financial necessity you’re at greatest risk of being pressured, cornered by timelines you don’t control and forced into accepting a less than ideal offer.

Either way, simply being aware of the reason for the property sale and deciding how much you want to let others in on the why of your sale, is best considered upfront.

PLANNING

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TIME FRAME There are known peaks and troughs in the real estate market.

‘Everyone’ wants to sell in spring and summer, but not too near Christmas, or a long weekend and make sure your auction isn’t rained on during winter. You will hear it all as you plan to sell. For every article telling you to sell in spring I can show you one that says you can sell just as well in winter. The whole concept of summer, autumn, winter or spring sales are probably restricted to the southern capital cities. The further north you go the variation diminishes significantly in Australia anyway.A beautifully staged home, with a roaring fire and cosy styling, will delight and inspire buyers in winter just as well as a home styled for sale in spring.Weather aside, your timeframe will also be determined by factors like your family plans, external deadlines and much more. Whatever the situation consider the end goal (the next home you want to be in and when that will be) and work backwards from there.

Here is an example of how this might work:

» You want the kids settled by January into new home ready for school start in February» Allow up to three months settlement period on any offer you make on that home » A six week house hunting period prior to that» Three months for your home to have settled» Eight week sale campaign prior to that» Four to six weeks to prepare your house for sale, appoint an agent and prepare marketing» That’s 44 weeks of prior planning and preparation to be ready for a school term start in Feburary!!!

You can offer incentives for early settlement, organised people can get their house on the market in a week if they have to and if you are anything like the hubby and me, we bought the first Saturday we went looking.

However, without external pressure, you could easily spend up to 44 weeks getting out of one property and into the next. If you are disorganised or indecisive it could take much longer.

PLANNING

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RESEARCH There are a couple of paths to go down here. When you aren’t relying on Agents, your Neighbour, your Father in Law or someone from work to tell you what your property is worth, believe me you’ll sleep better at night.

Professional Property Valuation

If you are time poor and can afford the upfront cost of around $900-$1,200 get your own property valuation. Yep, property valuations are not just for bankers. You can either get a desktop valuation which would suffice or a full valuation which includes a site visit.

The beauty of your own valuation is that they will do the research for you and they will consider recent, relevant sales data in your area and then overlay a other variables to come up with a valuation of your home. Property Data Services

Alternatively, look up a reputable provider of Real Estate Data; I suggest subscribing for just 1-3 months to Core Logic for example. You’ll get live, current access to sales results without scrolling through auction results on a Sunday morning. You’ll also get access to the back history of property sales in your area and information about which agents sold what properties.

PLANNING

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Meet with some agents and invite them to do an appraisal on your property for free.

Keep in mind the Agent suggesting the highest achievable price for your property is not necessarily the best one.

Armed with your own Property Valuation or Research, the heat and pressure is taken out of an Appraisal because you already have a clear understanding of what your property is worth.

You can focus on what’s likely to matter more such as:

» How well they communicate with you and keep you informed

» The value of their property marketing package

» Their understanding of and presence in the local market

You can and should ask for the details of the last three people they sold a home for and maybe a couple of people whose properties they are currently marketing.

Grab a cuppa and make some calls. Ask about their experience and outcome and it will help you make a great decision.

PLANNING

AGENT SELECTION & CONSULTATION

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PROFESSIONAL ADVICE

If you are time poor consider using a Vendor Advocate. They will generally charge you percentage of the sale price or other similar fee structure.

It’s certainly not necessary but I’d advise it if your work or other commitments mean that you are likely to be out of town during the sale period.

You may also want to consider a Vendor Advocate in some circumstances of financial or time pressured sales or where the person selling the home may otherwise be considered vulnerable.

PLANNING

PREPARATION

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This step may just be the hardest step yet. You have to somehow see your home as potential buyers will, not as the place you raised your children or the home you renovated with blood, sweat and tears.

View your home objectively You need to clearly identify the buyer objections, the repairs and maintenance you’ve been putting off or that feature wall which may not appeal to the masses. You need to set aside the value your possessions hold for you. This is the main reason that a Home Stager makes such a dramatic difference to the sale of a home. They can view it independent of the love and history the homeowner feels for the property. They will objectively come to your home, complete and internal and external walk through, take photos and measurements. Consult your professionals

They consider the selling environment, consult with your estate agent about your strategy and target market and then make recommendations about the repairs, improvements, styling and staging that will best position you to make the most money and achieve a quick sale.A Jim’s Home Stager will put this all into a report. The report lists strategies and you can then choose what you want to DIY and those jobs you’d prefer a tradie to do for you.

Importantly the Jim’s Home Stager also has their finger on the pulse of the quick cosmetic improvements most likely to generate a strong return on investment. They will, if possible, include quotations for the works from across the Jim’s Trade Crews.

If you don’t go on to use our home staging services, the report does have a cost but if you do go onto use our Home Staging and Trade Crew Services there is no charge. You can also elect to Layby almost everything so the cost of repairs, improvements and styling is deferred until after your sale.Many property investors do this as it makes sense to keep as much cash in your pockets or high interest earning accounts for the longest time. It’s also hard to find a quick $3-5k for the repairs and staging you’d like to do to increase your return on investment.Once you’ve finished this planning and preparation it’s time to get into the business of staging your home for sale.

PREPARATION

SORT

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The first thing to do is take a weekend or two to sort through your personal effects, treat this as a family wide project and tackle it together.

Your aim: Identify what you want to keep and take to the next home.

This is a hard job. So here’s a framework to make these decisions.

Hold the item in your hand, or touch it and ask yourself if the item brings you joy. Is it necessary and beautiful? Does it fulfil a purpose or add significant meaning to your life? If the answer is no (or not really or maybe) pop it into one of the piles below.

Sort what you are not keeping into groups like:

Sell – things that you can offload for money on ebay or a local facebook buy sell and swap group. The facebook groups tend to be quicker if you price it right. Ultimately you don’t want to have to pay to store, move or stuff around with it, so just get it sold.

Donate – My rule for donation is only donate those things you’d be happy to give away to a family member or close friend. Most stores can’t use that broken desk or old microwave that only works on one setting or marked children’s clothing that you are really just struggling to let go of.

Recycle – Don’t just bin your items, there are great recycling programs available for electrical waste, things like old clothes and sheets can be recycled into rags and more. Most of the time they will come and collect it too. Check your local government website for more details

Bin – If it doesn’t fit into this category. Bin it.

Once you have done this major sort you need to identify those personal items and furniture that support the effective staging and styling of your home. Your Jim’s Home Stager will help with this. Anything that isnt being let go of or used during the Home Staging - should be moved to temporary storage.

SORT

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Depersonalise your home: Depersonalising your home is also critical so – just for the sale period – you need to pack away things that might create a barrier for the potential buyer as they try to imagine themselves living there.

Target these areas to remove to storage personal items

» Personal or family photos

» Collections of anything

» Sports memorabilia and trophies

» Awards and certificates

» Personal paperwork and documents

These items and any furniture that doesn’t support the staging of your home, need to go somewhere.

Jim’s Home Stagers have a great deal with a mobile storage provider who will drop a box off at your place and then securely store it for the duration of the sale period.

If you aren’t using a mobile storage provider consider using a commercial storage unit or maybe boxing things up and leaving them in a friend or family member’s garage for a few weeks.

Importantly don’t stash them in the home’s own cupboards and garages, this will only diminish the impact of storing them away in the first place.

Reduce: Storage is one of the main things buyers are looking for in a home because it’s often a fixed factor. How big your linen closet is, what size your pantry is, whether there is a walk in robe or any built in robe, are all on the checklist of a buyer.During open for inspections expect and prepare for the fact that while they shouldn’t open things like the drawers of a moveable piece of furniture such as a bedside table, buyer will open closets and built in cupboards.

Even if you are taking your major shoe collection to the next home, even if you do fit food for a family of six in your pantry, consider reducing what you are currently holding on these shelves and in these cupboards.

Highlight the clean, chaos free storage your home does have by simply reducing the number of towels and sheets you have on hand during the sale period so that the home is shown in the best possible light.

If your garage has four bikes, two scooters, three trikes and boxes and bags of sports equipment, find another temporary home for them. They will make your garage

appear cluttered and diminished in space.

SORT

FIX

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REPAIRS Buyer objections are everywhere. They are the loose door handle, creaking floor boards and dated electrical outlets that put seeds of doubt into the mind of the buyer.

Is that a creaky floorboard or a $10,000 restumping job? Is there no safety switch? Have the electricals ever been updated? If they haven’t maintained the door handles, what else hasn’t been maintained?

These are all the cautionary voices that run through the mind of a buyer. So for the sake of a handyman for a few hours or a day, particularly when you can layby all of it in a Jim’s Home Staging package, it’s one of the best investments you can make when preparing your home for sale.

IMPROVEMENTSThere are some improvements that are known to have a strong, predictable return on investment.

Pick the ones that are quick and cosmetic and you’ll be able to put dollars in your pocket when your home gets to market. Along with Home Staging the most reliable, quick, cosmetic improvements you can make are:

» Painting – internal and external

» Flooring – replacing carpets, polishing floorboards

» Improvements to the Kerb Appeal – painting fences, fixing up driveways and carports, improving garden beds and external lighting

» Kitchen Update - Change over plumbing fittings, paint cabinetry, upgrade benchtops and maybe appliances

» Bathroom Update – Change over plumbing fittings, deal with dated cabinetry and paint the tiles

» Changeover Fixtures – update lights and other electrical fittings as well as door furniture for instant affordable impact

CLEANWhen was the last time you gave your home a bath? The hero of this one is the humble pressure washer although if you suspect you have Asbestos around the home you do need to be very careful.

Tackle the house exterior, steps, decks, driveways and carports with a high pressure wash. Then – if it were me – I’d get a professional in to do all the windows including the tracks and fly screens. Otherwise it’s a good job for a sunny afternoon.

Get carpets and, if your tiling has seen better days, your tiles professionally cleaned.

The only other major one you may want to tackle is your roof and gutters.

If you’re gutters aren’t clean and clear it can be a signal for suspicion. If your roof has seen better days, even if you don’t reseal it, simply cleaning it can help. Although again if you are unfortunate enough to have an Asbestos roof don’t use a pressure washer, scrub or potentially disturb it in any way at all!

Simply taking the time or investing a little to get your home professionally cleaned can give it a new lease of life and remove a whole heap of buyer objections

FIX

STAGE

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Staging your home with designer furniture and accessories is the finishing touch. Jim’s hires all of this furniture along with a professional stylist to help execute the placement and arrangement to show your home off in its best light.

You may need to fill a vacant property or just need a few pieces in some rooms to help bring it all together.

With Jim’s Interiors you can choose from:

» Style Over

» Partial Stage

» Full Stage

Importantly Jim’s also offers Overlays that help you target your prospective buyers better. We work usually in conjunction with your agent to identify if your prospective buyer is likely to be a young professional couple, a family, a first home buyer, an investor. We can even break it into cultural subgroups to best target the demographic profile of your area.

These overlays will bring in furniture and accessories that are designed to specifically appeal to the culture, the lifestyle and the design sensibilities of that target buyer.

Green stock like indoor and outdoor plants are a critical element of home staging. In my mind, they replace

the somewhat dated approach of popping a bunch of flowers in a vase for your home opens.

Having beautifully styled, healthy indoor and outdoor potted plants throughout your home adds a sense of vitality, health and life to your home in a way that’s natural, not contrived.

That’s why Jim’s supplies a gorgeous array of indoor and outdoor plants and pots, with most of their home styling packages.

However if you are electing to stage your own home you could:

» Borrow furniture, accessories, art work, rugs and linens from stylish friends and family

» Hire furniture from a large commercial furniture hire company

» Buy pieces that you would be planning to take to the new home

» Buy pieces that you could resell with little margin loss

The last three have an obviously higher upfront outlay and are a bigger commitment. This is especially the case with large furniture hire companies as you are often required to move out while their furnishings are in place. They tend to style only vacant properties.

Jim’s instead offers an option that allows you to live in during the period your home is styled and staged.

STAGE

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When staging and styling your home it’s important to consider:

» The buyer’s expectations of similar properties in the area and their needs

» The intended use of the room

» The overall colour palette of the fixed elements of the home

» The introduced colour palette of the furniture and finishes

» The amount of natural and artificial light

» The path of expected movement through the room

» The focal point (either an architectural feature or one you create) of each room

» The placement of the furniture to create balance or symmetry

» The size and proportion of the items you place in the room and their relationship to each other

» Creating lifestyle vignettes which indicate to the buyer how they would use the room, suggest a lifestyle of the area they may experience when the move in

Once you have considered these factors you need to select the furniture pieces and accessories to suit the staging. This may be a process of working through your own items, borrowing, buying and hiring items.

If you are styling the home yourself you’ll need to ensure all the items are delivered in advance of your first home open and then allow yourself at least one to two days to style and stage your home.

Alternatively, a Jim’s Home Stager will recommend a theme, select items on your behalf and bring them to your home. They will then style and stage the home for you within a day. This includes hanging artworks and mirrors and making all the beds.

Once you’ve staged your home the professional photographer engaged by the Real Estate Agent will attend, either the same or the following day to photograph the home.

From here it’s all about maintaining the staged state of the home until your home opens start and during the sale process.

STAGE

SELL

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Your estate agent will have provided a schedule for home opens and depending on their approach you need to be prepared for some occasional appointment based home opens that may meet the needs of that perfect buyer.

Keeping your home in a ‘staged’ state may be difficult especially while you are living there.

Our advice is to:

Take a few snaps on your phone of each room so you remember how the lounges are presented, the beds are styled and tables laid out. This will also help you delegate to other family members in the weeks ahead.

Pack away non-essential items, give the kids just one toy box with a few books and their favourite toys and activities in it and pack everything else away – despite their protestations they will survive and in fact be much happier when you are not nagging them to clean it all up before the next home open.

Swap your linens over – have one set for sleeping and one set for show so you never have to worry about the condition of the ones on show.

Get help – whether that’s a friend, your mum or someone you pay. Have a cleaner, like one of the clever Jim’s Cleaners, come over the day before or morning of each home open to do a quick clean of floors, bathrooms, mirrors, a quick dust or more. Spend your

time resetting the styling instead. Talk to a Jim’s Home Stager if you want to include this in your package.

Appeal to the senses - Oil burners, incense, those reed diffusers or worse still those glade plug in or airwick timed things are almost always artificial fragrances (which by the way are really bad for you).

Unless it’s a completely natural, soy candle or something like that the artificial, manufactured fragrances can be just as offensive as the ‘smells’ you are trying to cover up.

The absolute best thing you can do in the lead up to a home open is to air your home (open the windows and doors) for hours at a time if you can.

If you insist on using a fragrance check the ingredients and make sure its natural, stick to something really minimal and subtle because that Vanilla, Black Raspberry, Cinnamon, French Pear and Gardenia concoction ain’t going to appeal to everyone.

Or you could try making something yourself. Here is a recipe from Alexx Stuart of Low Tox Living.

Deal with the Doo Doo – almost the worst thing on a home open is to have a pet at home or worse to have not cleaned up after their doo doo in the yard. Buyers will see and smell it a mile off. Even if you think it’s not obvious, trust me, it is!

Always do a final sweep of the yard, literally as you walk your pet out of the gate before the home open starts.

From there, its over to your Agent whether selling privately or by auction, you can relax knowing you’ve done the most you can to get the best possible result.

You’ve probably made the agents job a little easier too!

SELL

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Selling your home was probably never going to be easy but it doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t have to put it on the market as is and hope for the best now that Jim’s Home Staging can layby a package of repairs, improvements and styling to ensure your home sells quickly and for more.The best bit is you get a coach and champion in your corner, your Jim’s Home Stager has seen and done this before, time and again, in your local area. Whether you go on to work with Jim’s or not we hope this guide has helped. If you need more information call us on 131 546 and we’ll put you in touch with your local home stager or you can or you can click here and we’ll contact you with local information, a quote and answer any of your questions.

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SO WHAT’S NEXT?

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