When it comes to selling your house, nothing is more important than a first impression. Most buyers decide whether they like a home within 15 seconds of walking in the door. Others won’t even go inside a house if they don’t like the way it looks from the outside. If you want to make a successful house sale, staging your house, or preparing it to be as attractive to a buyer as possible, should be your very first step.

Staging a Home’s Exterior

The goal of staging your house’s exterior is to improve the home’s curb appeal. Start by standing on the curb in front of your house and noting anything that looks unattractive. Get a friend to help you with this step for an unbiased opinion. In particular, look for the following issues:

• A lawn that needs to be mowed
• Chipped, faded or peeling paint
• Clutter in the yard
• Differently colored doors and shutters–they should be standardized
• Oil stains in the driveway
• Overgrown bushes and trees that need to be trimmed
• Weeds in the flower beds and lawn.

If your lawn is spotty, consider laying down fresh sod a month before putting your house on the market, so the fresh grass has time to grow. If the time of year is right, consider laying down fresh mulch in the plant beds and possibly even planting new flowers outside the front door. Yellow flowers like daffodils and marigolds can make your home instantly seem brighter and cheerier. Power-wash the outside of the house, especially the windows. Finally, put out a new doormat to give your house a more welcoming feeling.

Staging a Home’s Interior

The first step in staging a house’s interior should be to remove all clutter and excessive furnishings. Extra furniture can go into storage until you sell the house. These items can make rooms look smaller, and buyers are usually interested in large, open spaces. When deciding which furnishings to keep, go with items that are appropriate to the room’s size. A large sectional couch in a small den can make the room look cramped. By the same token, a single loveseat by itself is dwarfed in a large, open living room.

Next, give each room a thorough cleaning. Paint the walls in neutral colors to appeal to as many buyers as possible. Polish hard floor surfaces and clean the carpets. Consider replacing any worn rugs.

The morning of an open house or buyers’ visit, consider baking cookies in your oven. Buyers appreciate bites to eat, and your house will smell warm and inviting. Before they arrive, turn on all the lights in the house and open all the drapery. Lower the toilet seat. Place a vase of fresh flowers on a table in the living or dining room, and play soft music from the same radio station in every room of the house.