Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Staging a home to sell is about more than giving a home a thorough cleaning and strategically placing some furniture. Those are great starting points of course, but as a seller works to make their home as appealing as possible to potential home buyers, they must take every reasonable step to get their home on par with the other area homes for sale. In fact, in today’s real estate market home sellers are having to go above and beyond to blow the competition away and win over the next home buyer that comes into the neighborhood and in to view their home. 

Staging a home has costs involved but when done properly, can be the key to getting a home sold.  In most cases, the costs of staging are made back up by generating a higher sales price. But the costs may need to be viewed as simply a preparation cost and necessary to get a home sold in today’s complicated real estate market — in other words the costs may not be recouped but could be the difference between for sale and sold. One of the biggest buyer turn-offs I see is dated ceramic tile. From your rose-colored 1960’s tile, to your 8×8 1970’s tile and almond 1980’s tile… out-dated tile can really hurt the eyes.  

Sellers who can’t afford to install new tile can neutralize the tile by painting it. We all know that tile is made with the specific goal of KEEPING things from attaching to the tile. But there are some great products out there – like Sherwin Williams Adhesion Primer – that are specifically designed to help paint adhere to tile. When choosing a primer, spend whatever it costs to get the best product available. If you don’t, the paint could be peeling off within a year. The finished paint can be either a latex or oil-based paint. Latex paint is easier to use and provides easy cleanup but may require multiple coats and won’t last as long. Oil based paint often requires one coat and are longer lasting but can be complicated to apply, hard to clean up and leave an odor in the home for several days.

Posted by Jason A. Brown