We tend to mention home staging often here on The Fun Times Guide, probably because it works. 

For example, in Tips For Staging Your House To Get The Highest Selling Price, Lynnette explains why home staging is so important:

If the home you're selling is brand new (or a flip), you should count on spending 1% of your home's asking price on "staging". In return, you can expect to get 10 times that back!

Still, house staging is quite an elusive creature.  How exactly do you stage a home?  What are all the items in the home you need to look at?  How much does it really cost to stage a house?

Before you utilize the 5 ways to sell your house fast, you first need to prepare your home for the sale. 

Why?

Because people aren't looking for "diamonds in the rough" right now. 

Your home must sparkle, in order for it to sell... fast! 

 

 

It’s no surprise that it is hard to sell a home these days.  Even in the best areas, homes can sit on the market for months and even years. 

While this is great for home buyers because they have their pick of homes, home sellers need to work extra hard to make a sale. 

The longer a house is on the market, the more it costs the seller:

You might lose out on your own home buying opportunities. 

Or you could lose more money -- especially if you have already purchased a new home, or need to get out of a home that you can no longer afford.

As a homeowner, you have to get creative about the ways you attempt to sell your home, since homes aren't selling very fast on their own these days.

Here are some creative ways to sell your house fast...

Some of the times when you might want to give your home a deep cleaning include:

Prior to moving

Before guests come for an overnight stay

At the start of each season (fall, spring, winter, summer)

Before putting your house up for sale

That said, sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what to do and where to start.

Here are a few tips to help you deep clean your home -- inside and out.

If you rent an apartment (or a house), then you're probably wondering if you should buy renters insurance or not.

My first introduction to renters insurance was when I worked as a property manager right out of college.  We had an apartment flood (due to no fault of the owner), and the tenant demanded reparations. 

I had to explain to the tenant that this is why it was suggested that they buy renters insurance when they moved in.  But the tenant did not understand why they were not covered by the property owner’s insurance. They were not happy, and I got my first taste of the downsides of property management.  In the end, the property manager sent the company cleaners to the apartment to clean all that they could, and the tenant had to deal with the rest. 
 
So, who really needs to buy renters insurance?  Here's what you need to know about insurance for renters.

How many days have homes been on the market in your neighborhood? Or in the areas where you've been shopping for a new home?

It may seem like a long time for some homes -- even in the really 'hot' neighborhoods. But chances are, your local Realtors are fudging the numbers in their reports to show that houses are selling faster than they really are.

Here's how they do it...

We've got the blueprints completed and printed for our new log home. We are about to sign on the dotted line for the loan. Now we're just waiting for the county's final approval before we break ground.

If all goes as planned, we should close by the end of the month and begin the excavation work to lay the foundation for our log home soon thereafter. With that in mind, it could be anywhere from 6 to 9 months before we move into The Fun Times Lodge (...wait til you see all the other fun names I've come up with for our log cabin home!).

Let The Home Staging Begin...

At this point, I'm getting into the "packing" mode... doing a lot of cleaning, purging, and donating in order to lighten our load for the upcoming move.

At the same time, I'm also trying to "de-personalize" our current house a bit -- which, they say, is one of the most important steps in "staging" your home.

I like at least 10% of a display space, such as a bookcase, to be empty. A coffee table and other practical surfaces should be only 10% full." -- Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, makeover expert on HGTV's "Small Space, Big Style"

With that in mind, here are some tips from the pro's about staging your home for resale. Hopefully, these staging tips will help you get top dollar for your home...