While it’s fun to personalize a home with your favorite color schemes or ethnic styles, know thi s: if you’re in the market to sell your home, you better change everything. Yes, everything. Why?

Staging will sell your house. Plain and simple.

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What many home sellers don’t understand is that it’s not the home that sells. It’s the ‘house’ that sells. What that means is you need to take all of YOU out of the equation. What home buyers are ultimately looking for is a house — not you.

This means you need to change the color into something neutral — beige, white, whatever. Opt for simple furniture styling, reduce the lived-in clutter, overhaul your landscaping. In essence, you have to make your home look new.

Keep this in mind, though: ‘new’ doesn’t mean ‘renovated.’ Don’t shell out tons of money to replace the roof, windows, basement, carpet, floors, and just about everything else (unless you really need to!). All you need to do is to shed a few pieces of furniture (maybe), find a few other simpler pieces to add in, clean up the floors, buy a little neutral paint, and you might do just fine!

Home buyers are interested in space. They can’t see the space if they’re too busy seeing your stuff. Lighten it up. Let the house sell itself. You’ll definitely see top dollar for all the hard work. Watch the offers fly in from every direction, and you’ll be reaping the rewards of the benefit that is home staging.