Secrets of home staging can help sell your home more quickly and for more money

CLEVELAND - Consider it the equivalent of your best outfit and accessories. Home staging makes your home look its best. 

This can involve upgrades in flooring, carpet or light fixtures. It may also be as simple as fresh paint and rearranging some furniture to make your rooms look more spacious.

Professional home stager Lisa Ciofani Basham works with her clients to highlight a home's appeal, and minimize less attractive features. Starting with the exterior, which should be pristine with a park-like, inviting yard.

"Prospective buyers will drive on by a house that doesn't look well cared for," Basham said. 

Basham showed us a home she'd staged for a client on Walnut Drive in Strongsville. It is listed for $159,900.  At Basham's urging, the owner invested in new paint, flooring, light fixtures and windows. Basham also rearranged and removed furniture to maximize space and add balance to the rooms. 

Something sellers might not think about is how to connect with a buyer's emotions, helping them to imagine your house as their home. 

Setting the dining room table complete with crystal and linens, dressing up the master bedroom with a lot of pillows and a soft throw over the end of the bed, adding a basket of spa products to the bath  - all of these are inviting touches.

For more on Lisa's home staging business, click here .