In the mood to recycle an article – this was originally published in 2009, but it’s still one of my favorite bits of staging advice.  Please pass it along to anyone thinking about putting their “home” on the market…

Far from Home – The Zen of Selling

What you used to call home has just become another listing – one of many, many properties up for sale. So how will you stand out from the crowd? You’ll spend money fixing it up, getting it ready. You’ll throw a new coat of paint on the walls. You’ll invest in a professional stager and maybe an organizer to help you de-clutter. But there’s one improvement most people neglect to make and it’s the least costly of them all. It’s also arguably the hardest to-do on the list.

What can you do to improve your chances of a quick sale that costs nothing?

Stop calling it “home.” Really. Remove the word from your vocabulary and from your mind. When you leave work at the end of the day, head back “to the house.” When you tell people you’re selling, say your “place” is for sale. It may sounds crazy, but once you stop calling it your home, once you detach yourself from those four walls, something mystical happens. Call it the Law of Attraction, Zen, Fred, whatever name you want to give it – once you stop referring to your home as “home,” buyers start appearing.

Ask any realtor – they’ll swear they sell more property when the homeowner is out of town, on vacation (and hard to reach). When the homeowner is detached, distracted from the stress of selling – when they are far from “home,” things begin to happen. So when you’re getting ready to sell, move that bike out of the kitchen, take the photos off the mantle, and depersonalize your vocabulary too. It costs nothing to do and just might make all the difference.