In today's real estate competitive marketplace, it's always worthwhile to give your home every opportunity to rise above the competition. One of the best ways to do that is by decorating your home with potential buyers in mind in order to impress them enough to prompt a quick sale at the best price.

If you're new to the game, you can find some excellent television shows that offer ongoing ideas about how to decorate your home for a quick sale. One of the best is HGTV's "Designed to Sell," which focuses on how to turn uninteresting homes into houses that will attract buyers more effectively without having to spend huge amounts of money.

The first step in decorating for sales success involves cleaning and decluttering your home. Clutter may not be synonymous with dirt, but psychologically that's exactly the impression it will have on potential buyers. So get out the broom, vacuum, scrub brushes, and packing boxes and get your home spic-and-span! You'll be amazed at the difference just doing that will make. After you've seen the transformation, you'll then be able to decide how much paint and other minor repairs your home will need. The results may surprise you, and save you lots of money.

If the house needs it, next will come the things that cost money, so start with paint and fixing minor things like squeaky doors or balky drawers, especially in the kitchen. Buy some potted flowers and place them in various rooms to add color and a cheerful feel.

The goal is always to try to see your home through the eyes of a potential buyer. If it's something that bothers you, it'll bother them, as well. If you're not sure what to do in order to easily, quickly, and inexpensively make your home more attractive to buyers, have a friend walk through the house with you and make suggestions, especially about any negative things that jump out during your walk-through.

The changes don't need to be major. In fact, they generally shouldn't be major. You're only concentrating on adding enough appeal to your home to entice a buyer to make an offer. When in doubt, think about the last time you walked through a model home in a new housing development. Everything in the home was fresh and new, and every aspect of the model was carefully staged to allow you to envision yourself in the home. That's the kind of feeling you want to instill in folks who tour your home, although you don't want to break the bank in the process.

There's no reason why you can't get a higher price for your home, and more quickly, if you're willing to spend some time getting it ready for sale by making it as clean, clutter-free, and attractive as possible, even before the first potential buyer walks through your newly-painted front door. It just takes time, some good old-fashioned elbow grease, a relatively small investment in paint and flowers, and some inventive imagination.

Copyright 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher