301 Simple Things You Can Do to Sell Your Home Now and for More Money Than You Thought: How to Inexpensively Reorganize, Stage, and Prepare Your Home for Sale (Paperback)

by Teri B. Clark (Author), Marie Lujanac (Editor)
Key Phrases: washing soap solution, staging your home, home staging, Professional Bonus Tip, Gail Greer, Charlie Ann Taylor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
This is a very enlightening book on how to stage your home to get the most money out of the sale. It includes do-it-yourself tips from laying tile to installing a faucet. This book is a must for selling your home and will work no matter what your budget is. You won t be disappointed. --DONNA CUNNINGHAM, Realtor; CENTURY 21 SMITH & ASSOC., INC.

Product Description
Numerous studies show that a house that is well polished on the surface and staged properly will appeal to more buyers, sell faster, and most importantly for more money. You may not be able to improve the market value of your house, but you can improve its marketability. Remember: first impressions count the most. Home Staging is the art of decorating a home to sell fast and for the highest amount. Home stage experts and consultants get thousands of dollars to do what you can easily do inexpensively, with little or no money. Keep in mind this important fact: the way you live in your home and the way you market it for sale are two very different things. In this groundbreaking new book you will learn how small color changes will increase your home s value, minor repairs and de-cluttering tricks, how to rearrange your furniture and art work, decorating tips and ideas, how to look at your house from the buyer's viewpoint, how to add minor accessories, which items stay and what must go, which minor changes will bring you the greatest return, how to bring out a home's best features, table settings, candles, what photos must go and which ones stay, how to minimize problem areas, how to position your house for the marketplace, what music to play, what scents to spray, how to use design psychology techniques, lighting techniques, landscaping secrets, what to do with garages, basements and attics, what color you should never use, how to ensure a positive traffic flow through rooms, how to use mirrors and natural light, and much more. This brand new exhaustively researched book is the ultimate resource for novices and pros alike; it will guide you through every step of the process with hundreds of innovative ideas that you can put to use right away. This book gives you the proven strategies and innovative ideas used by the expert s everyday that you can easily do your self. The book also includes a full-color insert packed with photos of before and after shots!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Company (FL); illustrated edition edition (March 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0910627061
• ISBN-13: 978-0910627061
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #152,840 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I've read for staging your home, March 24, 2007

By	Ryan W. Worthy - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is extremely useful when you're selling your house. I thought I already knew how to make my house look good, but I hadn't realized half of the things mentioned in this book. It details everything you will need to know, including how to complete minor repairs in your home from replacing a faucet to painting your walls. It also talks about furniture arrangement and getting rid of the clutter. I never realized that something as simple as turning your dining room table at a different angle could make that big of a difference. After seeing the pictures, I believe! This book is filled with before and after pictures (in color) that show what a difference staging the room can have. Clark's book also provides check-lists and tips throughout so that you won't forget anything. The tips she provides are practical and easily implemented. She also includes a section on how to get the most for your money, especially when you are on an extremely tight budget. If you are trying to sell your house, this is THE book to buy. It contains all of the information you will need to get more money for your house.

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid Guide to Staging Your House for a Successful Sale, April 11, 2007

By	Thomas North (Seoul, South Korea) - See all my reviews

Selling a home can be a time-consuming and stressful time, especially if the home doesn't sell right away, or doesn't even get serious bites from potential buyers. There are a lot of reasons buyers might not be interested in a house - the location, for example - that are out of the seller's control. However, there are also a lot of things sellers can do to actually sell their house to the buyer, primarily by making the house a more attractive and compelling purchase. Teri B. Clark's book on house staging, the not-so-succinctly titled 301 Simple Things You Can Do to Sell Your Home NOW and For More Money Than You Thought, lays out how to effectively stage your house to maximize both the number of interested buyers, and the selling price.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, staging is essentially arranging and decorating your house in a way that makes it appealing to virtually anyone who enters it. Think of a window display in a store, or a floor model of a bedroom set, and you will get the idea: the objective is to make the house an eye-catching product that buyers are excited about purchasing. 301 Simple Things...covers the entire process of staging in great detail, from simple do-it-yourself tasks like cutting down on clutter, patching drywall, and thoroughly - and I mean thoroughly - cleaning your kitchen, bathroom, and windows, to more complex tasks that could require professional help, like putting in a new toilet. The overall point that the book drives home is that staging is not the same as remodeling, and should not require installation of expensive appliances or amenities, or major changes to the house itself. Staging is about doing a variety of small, things: painting cabinets, rearranging furniture, cleaning, opening curtains, etc. to make the house more presentable to buyers.

Though the book at times serves as an advertisement for some of the professional house stagers it features in its case studies, the content is actually based around a do-it-yourself type of attitude. It walks you through all the tasks and principles behind staging your house, and gives specific, step-by-step instructions on all the tasks it recommends. If you have never put up wallpaper or painted a concrete basement floor, for example, Clark walks you through all of the details of those processes. A simple carpentry book might be a good companion piece if you decide to stage your house yourself, but the information in 301 Simple Things... is detailed enough that you will probably only have to consult the carpentry book if you run into a problem. Speaking of problems: aside from guiding you through what to do, 301 Simple Things... also covers what not to do, describing problems and pitfalls that turn off potential buyers.

The great thing about 301 Simple Things You Can Do to Sell Your Home NOW and For More Money Than You Thought is that the vast majority of the book is useable content, without a lot of fluff. Case studies, which are essentially anecdotes from real estate professionals, serve to reinforce the importance of whatever topic the book is covering, and its illustrations (photographs) do a great job of showing, visually, how staging can change the look and feel of a house. If you are considering selling your home, 301 Simple Things...is a great read. It provides plenty of useable ideas for making your house a product that potential buyers will get excited about purchasing, and living in. Whether you decide to use the services of a professional, or make improvements yourself using its step-by-step guides, 301 Simple Things...can be a huge asset in your quest to sell your home.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Key to Maximizing Profits from the Sale of Your Home, March 12, 2007

By	Miranda L. Miller (Tara, ON) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

We've all heard that staging your home is the key to selling it at a higher price point, but until reading this book, I had no idea how to do it properly, or how much impact the smallest touches would have on my final sale price.

While no homebuyer would ever need to implement all 301 staging techniques in their home, the organized layout of this book makes it simple for any reader to find just the right strategies for their home. There is truly a solution for every budget, property size and location and home renovation skill level. This book was an invaluable tool in helping me to decide which changes I needed to make, how much they could increase the value of my home, how to go about making the changes and even when to hire a contractor. I thought I at least knew the basics, but 301 Simple Things surprised me - I dropped some of my original plans (they just didn't seem worth it anymore) and adopted several new techniques that even my real estate agent found impressive.

With a comprehensive guide like this available, it just doesn't make sense to go it alone. This book left me with a feeling of accomplishment, as I handled many of the value-building tasks on my own with Clark's instruction.