North Harbor Drive

Staging Your Home For First-Time Buyers
Selling downtown Chicago homes is more difficult in the current market than it has been in the past. Potential home buyers are priced into areas that they wouldn’t have been able to afford a few years ago. Making sure that your condo is staged appropriately to appeal to these buyers is an important factor. Along with competitive pricing and other incentives, staging that appeals to first-time buyers can help you move your home off the market more quickly.

The Wall Street Journal points out a few important characteristics to remember about first-time buyers, and you can capitalize on those factors with your staging.

• First-time buyers prefer “homey” homes. This is good news if you are trying to sell your home while living in it. If you are trying to sell an unoccupied property, it might be worth the investment to get some furniture and home accessories in the space to make it more believable as a home for new buyers.
• First-time buyers don’t want to pay for large improvements. A coat of paint or a professional cleaning will lure in new buyers, but a massive renovation that gets added into the price of the home will turn them off. Make small improvements that will have a big impact in the home.
• Simultaneously, first-time buyers don’t want to have to make large improvements themselves. Trying to sell a home that needs major improvements to new buyers who, in this market, can buy something finished is going to difficult. Completing rehabs and repairing major issues might be necessary for sale.
• Maintenance matters to new home buyers. First-time buyers like a well-maintained property. The cost of doing things like landscaping while your home is on the market will be worth it when it helps you sell your home.
• First time buyers want to see themselves in your home, not you. When you are showing the home, you want it to feel homey but also generic. When staging for first-time home buyers, remove overly distinctive decor and signals of yourself or the current resident.

In addition, some tactics beyond staging that might help you sell your home to first time buyers include:

• Offering to help with the closing costs. For first-time buyers, high closing costs can be a major barrier to purchase. By contributing to the closing costs, you may help to expedite the sale of your home.
• Offering a home warranty. To transition young buyers from life with a landlord to managing their own property, giving them a warranty on the home might make them feel more comfortable with their new role as homeowner.
• Consider all offers. Even first-time buyers are shopping for a deal in the high-end neighborhoods that they are now priced into. Considering even low ball offers at least gets you into negotiation with a buyer– you never know where it will go from there.

The most active demographic in this buyer’s market is first-time buyers, and even in markets that they used to be priced out of, many homes are selling to young people who have never owned before. Making your home salable to a first-time buyer might be the key to closing for you. With an experienced agent and a good understanding of what first-time buyers are looking for and how to cater to it, you can compete with other sellers and find a buyer for your property.