Home Showing Etiquette For All 5 Senses

Our 5 senses play an integral role in our processing of the world around us; these sensory cues trigger our emotional responses. Thus, we associate different emotions with different experiences. Some subtle touches can highlight the best features of your home, creating the experience that has potential buyers imagining this as their future home!

Sight

What we sense by sight is one of the very first things we notice about a place we have never been in before. Set a welcoming tone for the experience from the moment potential home buyers pull up with a manicured lawn and healthy plants for the top curb appeal.

Inside, give your home a good declutter and clean! When looking at homes for sale, buyers want to feel assured that they have been well cared for and will have enough space for everything they need. If you are unsure where to start, use the top to bottom, left to right method—beginning with ceiling fans and tops of shelves, working your way down all the way to the floors, utilizing bins for knick-knacks, loose bits and bobs, and personal items. For extra organization, use a colour-coded container for each member of the household to better keep track.

Lastly, be sure to highlight key areas by opening up the curtains and turning on the lights in darker areas! Window dressings such as curtains and blinds can often be neglected, so be sure to give these some love and care.

Smell

Though we can become desensitized to the smells in our own homes, home sellers must put themselves in the buyer's shoes and thoroughly deodorize, neutralize, and freshen the space. Think about how off-putting pet odours and trash odours will be to buyers! Be sure to take out the trash and clean things like litter boxes, putting them away in the laundry room.

Experts recommend using harsh cleaning solutions for deep cleaning to prepare the home for new owners. However, we must advise against using products that have strong scents when showing to potential buyers. Instead, use only mildly scented products. Candles are also not recommended to be used during showings—not only for the risk of the open flame but also because overly scented/artificial aromas may signal buyers that you are trying to mask odours!

Experienced REALTORs will propose using more natural fragrances, such as doing laundry beforehand, placing dryer sheets in drawers, or using clean linen scented plug-in (unplugged a few hours before). These give the home a fresh and clean scent, rather than an artificial and unnatural one. Baking cookies before a showing or heating up a few drops of vanilla on the stove will also provide a sense of warmth and comfort. Studies have also shown that citrus scents make a home feel worth more.

Taste

A day of home showings can be exhausting to buyers, and no one can truly enjoy their experience if they're hungry or thirsty. Simple snacks and bottles of water left for potential buyers can be the exact touch needed to leave that lasting, welcoming impression. Those cookies we talked about earlier? They can serve a double purpose here, just saying!

Touch

Of all lasting impressions, dusty and gritty surfaces that leave texture on your hands aren’t a good one. Make sure to dust so that buyers’ fingers come away clean! You want to be sure that they feel comfortable enough to touch. And leave closet doors cracked open for them to check out the storage spaces and vacuum carpets (both ways) for that plush and luxurious feel. 

The idea is to emphasize what is already amazing about your home and help buyers to imagine the life they can make in the home. Thinking your home may need more of a facelift to get it showing-ready? Consider whether you may need to renovate before selling your home and contact me today about becoming your REALTOR!

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