Wouldn't it be nice to have Roger Hazard's design team from "Sell This House" come visit for a weekend?

Many "redecorators" and designers offer "Staging Homes" services from $250 to $5,000. These services usually give good advice, some help with the actual work involved, and others even move in new furniture for you.

However, using Design Psychology strategies will help you make the right choices on what is necessary to stage your home for a top-dollar sale.

Residential Design Psychology encompasses your entire home setting, from the fist sighting, whether your home is a condominium, single family home, or a manufactured home. Design Psychology, based on years of research on how our environments affect our emotions, helps stage homes with the buyers' emotions in mind. Also, this interior decorating system uses the underlying physiological response to design details-- how our senses react to colors, patterns, textures, and furnishings, to entice a buyer to REALLY want your home.

Home buyers make their ultimate home selection based on their emotional reactions to the properties they visit. The way their brains interpret what they see, hear, touch, smell, and even taste causes them to feel connected to the home they choose. Buyers may think they make a choice based on economics, but even this decision is based on the way they feel because they're getting a deal.

You, as a home seller, have two initial choices.

1. Sell your home as a bargain to investors or bargain shoppers with limited income, or

2. Sell your home for top dollar to your target market.

To prepare your home to sell to investors and bargain shoppers, all you need to do is look for a real estate agent who does a lot of advertising. This agent will list your home under market value. Then sit back and allow the agent to sell your home for a rock-bottom price. Don't be surprised when you get many offers for lower than your asking price right away.

If you want to work a little, or perhaps a lot, you can sell your home for top dollar. Explore ways to create a buyers' dream home. Because buyers let their emotions rule their decisions, stage your home for your specific buyer profile. Learn how certain colors, textures, and even plants help attract buyers who will spend more money on your home. Get busy removing clutter, packing memorabilia, staging, and sell your home for top dollar. Don't be surprised when you get many offers for more than your asking price right away.

You may be able to assemble your own team of friends to help you clear out your crowded rooms, paint, and spiff up your gardens. Who needs Roger Hazard's team when you've got a few good friends and Design Psychology?

(c) Copyright 2005 Jeanette J. Fisher All rights reserved.

Jeanette Fisher, Design Psychology Professor, is the author of "Sell Your Home for Top Dollar--FAST! Interior Design Psychology Secrets for Optimum Selling in Any Market," and other real estate and interior design books. For more information on staging your home for sale, visit http://sellfast.info/ Staging Houses for Sale Questions? Sell Fast Blog/