In this game-changing book, author Starr C. Osborne shares secrets that staging consultants don’t want you to know for yourself, which will help you save money during the sales process and maximize the value of your home. As one of America’s most successful staging experts, Osborne knows what staging tricks cause buyers to fight over a property. Home Staging That Works provides specific recommendations on what to do, keep, chuck, fix, paint, replace, avoid, update, show, hide, highlight, and more. You’ll learn how to: focus on your potential buyers’ tastes (not your own), - create curb appeal, - drive interest online with photos that flatter your home, - declutter and prepack at the same time, - clean and repair your home without spending a fortune, - and keep your home sale-ready without being afraid to live in it An amazing 91 percent of real estate professionals say professional staging is the way to go. Complete with photographs of real-life before-and-after transformations, Home Staging That Works offers strategies for each room in your home as well as conceptual approaches to bring the parts together beautifully and make the right buyer fall in love. Selling a home can be an emotion-laden process. Yet as real estate easily languishes for months in this down market, it’s time to readjust that attitude. Philadelphia real estate entrepreneur–designer Osborne solves the issue with a total transformation, or staging, a technique in existence since the 1970s. One warning, though: staging is a lot harder and more time-consuming than it looks. After all, it basically involves removing all traces of personality to transform a house into a visual story that a potential buyer can imagine living in. Her seven steps—target buyers, declutter, use color, create balance, focus, repair, and clean—are well explained and photographically illustrated; befores and afters dramatically depict the difference between a cluttered, unappealing bathroom with chipped tile and chokes galore and a clean-lined pedestal-sink-and-toilet-only room. In every chapter, each step is accompanied by very practical recommendations for the habits and preferences of four different ages of buyers (baby boomers and Generations Jones, Xs, and Ys). Tips include wonder cleaning aids like Goo Gone and magic erasers; fifteen plants for varying sun conditions; right boxes for the right purposes—and materials. Pragmatic advice that any and every home seller needs to memorize and follow. --Barbara Jacobs Do you want to sell your home at a premium price -- now? If you want to sell it fast, and for more money, you need to stage--that is, you need to package your home in a way that emphasizes its strengths, downplays its weaknesses, and immediately appeals to prospective buyers. According to 91% of realtors, home staging is the way to go. But you don't need to pay a professional thousands of dollars to give your home a strategic makeover. In "Home Staging That Works," you'll learn all the secrets, tricks, and techniques of the trade. Staging is all about making a spectacular first impression on a buyer, and staging expert Starr C. Osborne gives you step-by-step, room-by-room instructions on what to do, keep, toss, fix, paint, replace, avoid, update, show, hide, highlight, and more. First, she teaches you how to see what a buyer sees. (Beware: that buyer will probably notice more about your house in 30 seconds than you've noticed in the last two years.) Then, she shows you how to make your home look big, bright, warm, and welcoming--in short, everything the buyer has been looking for. In "Home Staging That Works," you'll learn how to: Focus on your potential buyers' tastes (not your own). Create curb appeal. Drive Internet interest with photos that flatter your home. De-clutter and pre-pack at the same time. Clean and repair your home without spending a fortune. Keep your home sale-ready-without being afraid to live in it. Packed with bulleted "must-do" lists, real-home examples, and 65 photos-many "before and after"-to illustrate the dramatic difference staging makes, "Home Staging That Works" demonstrates how easy and rewarding it can be to redesign your home for the ideal buyer. Starr C. Osborne is owner and founder of Tailored Transitions, one of the nation's premier home staging, interior design, and moving-management companies. Visit her website at www.tailoredtransitions.com and her blog and tweets at StagingStarr. STARR C. OSBORNE (Philadelphia, PA) is owner and founder of Tailored Transitions, Philadelphia’s premiere home staging, moving-management, and design company. STARR C. OSBORNE is owner and founder of Tailored Transitions, Philadelphia's premiere home staging, moving-management, and design company. Home Staging That Works Sell Your Home in Less Time for More Money By STARR C. OSBORNE AMACOM Copyright © 2010 Starr C. Osborne All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8144-1522-1 Contents FEATURES..................................